Today's Quote

"For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women." 

Elizabeth Blackwell 

The first woman in the U.S. to become a physician

Remembering the WASPS (Repost)

As we celebrate this Veteran's Day let us not forget those brave women who gave their lives for our country.

It was the early 1940's, and the Air Force found itself in quite a dilemma.  There were thousands of planes being manufactured that needed to be delivered to the various bases, but the pilots were all overseas fighting in the war; hence, the government launched a new, experimental program to train women to fly these military aircraft, and from 1942 to 1944, thousands of women were trained.

So it was that a select group of women became pioneers and as such, they faced both disbelief and resentment from their male counterparts.  Nonetheless, these women remained fearless and committed; they were our heroes and our role models.

The came from all walks of life, but they all had one desire...the desire to fly. They were forced to undergo some very rigorous training, and only barely half of the women who signed up made it to graduation.  They were the first women in American history who flew military aircraft. 

They voluntarily put their lives on the line to prove that women could successfully fly these military aircraft. Thirty-eight of these woman were killed in the line of duty. 

Jane Delores Champlin:  b.14 May 1917 in Chicago, Illinois.  She lost her life on 7 June 1944 when she and her training instructor were killed on a training flight. 

Susan Parker Clarke: b. 1918 in Cooperstown, New York.  She died 4 July 1944 where the plane she was ferrying crashed in Columbia, South Carolina.  

Marjorie Laverne Davis: b. Hollywood, California.  Marjorie died 16 October 1944 while on a cross country training flight.

Catherine Kay Applegate Dussig: b. Dayton, Washington.  She died 26 November 1944 while flying on an administrative cross-country flight.

Marjorie Doris Edwards: b. 28 September 1918 in Fullerton, California.  She died 8 January 1944 while on a cross country training flight.

Jane Elizabeth Erickson: b. 24 April 1921 in Seattle, Washington.  She died 16 April 1944 in a mid-air collision in the traffic pattern at Avenger Field.

Cornelia Fort: 5 February 1919 in Nashville, Tennessee.  She died 21 March 1943 in a mid-air collision.  She was the first woman to lose her life while flying for the Army Air Force.

Frances Fortune Grimes: b. Deerpark, Maryland.  She died in an attack bomber on 27 March 1944 shortly after take-off.

Mary E. Hartson: b. 11 January 1917 in Portland, Oregon.  She died 14 August 1944 while flight testing. 

Mary Holmes Houson: b. 16 February 1919 in Wayne, Pennsylvania.  She died while returning from a cross country flight...a mid-air collision.

Edith Edy Clayton Keene: b. Canton, Montana.  She died 24 April 1944 while on a routine flight.

Catherine Barbara Lawrence: b. 3 December 1920 in Grand Fork, North Dakota.  She died 4 August 1943 while on a routine training flight.  She bailed out, but her chute failed to open.

Hazel Ying Lee:  b. August, 1912 in Portland, Oregon.  She died 23 November 1944 in a mid-air collision while on the final approach to the Great Falls Army Airfield.

Paula Ruth Loop: b. 25 Aug 1916 in Wakita, Oklahoma.  She died 7 Jul 1944 while on a ferrying mission.

Alice E. Lovejoy: b:1919 in Scarsdale, New York.  She died 13 September 1944 in a mid-air collision.

Peggy Wilson Martin: b. 8 Feb 1912 in Seattle, Washington.  She died 3 October 1944 while test flying.

Lea Ola MacDonald: b. 12 Oct 1921 in Hollywood, Arizona.  She died 21 June 1944 on a practice flight of an attack bomber.

Virginia E. Moffat:  b. Los Angeles, California.  She died 5 October 1943 while on a routine flight. 

Beverly Jean Moses: b. 21 December 1923 in Des Moines, Iowa.  She died while flying as a co-pilot when their plane crashed into the mountains.

Dorothy Mae Dottie Nichols: b. Los Angeles, California.  She died 11 June 19944 just after take-off.

Jeanne Lewellen Norbeck: b. 14 November 1912 in Columbus, Indiana.  She died 16 Oct 1944 while flight testing.

Margaret Sanfford Oldenburg: She was the first trainee to die in the WASP Program when she was killed on a routine flight 7 March 1943.

Mabel Virginia Rawlinson: b. 19 March 1917 in Kalamazoo, MI.  She died 23 Aug 1943 when her attack bomber crashed.

Gleanna Roberts: b. 11 Jan 1919 in Sharon Township, Iowa.  She died 20 June 1944 while on a routine training flight.

Maria Mitchell Robinson: b. Michigan.  She died while co-piloting on 2 October 1944.  Her plane crashed in the mountains.

Bettie Mae Scott: b. 26 July 1921 in Monrovia, California.  She died 8 July 1944 while flight testing.

Dorothy E. Scott: b. 16 Feb 1920 in Seattle, Washington.  She died 3 Dec 1943 in a mid-air collision with her instructor.

Margaret June Seip: b. 24 June 1916 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  She died 30 August 1943 together with her instructor and a fellow classmate on a routine training flight.

Helen Jo Anderson Severson: b. 2 November 1918 in Marvin SD.  She died together with her instructior and a fellow classmate on a routine flight on 30 August 1943.  

Marie Ethel Sharon: b. 21 April 1917 in Forsythe, MT.  She died 10 Apr 1944 while she and her instructor were on a night flying instrument training flight.

Evelyn Sharp: b. 20 October 1919 in Millstone, MT.  She died 3 April 1944 when her engine failed on take-off.

Betty Pauline Stine: b. Fort Worth, Texas.  She died 25 Feb 1944 while on her last cross country flight before graduation.  

Marian Toevs.: b. Aberdeen, ID.  She was killed 18 February 1944 when her plane crashed near San Jose.

Gertrude Tompkins-Silver: b. 16 October 1912 in Jersey City, New Jersey.  She died after departing on a ferrying mission.  Her body was never found, and she is the only WASP unaccounted for.

Mary Elizabeth Trebing: b. 31 December 1920 in Royalton, IL.  She died 7 November 1943 when the plane she was ferrying crashed.

Mary Louise Webster: b. 30 Jun 1919 in Ellensburg, Washington.  She died 9 December 1944 while flying as a co-pilot.

Bonnie Jean Alloway Welz: b. 22 Jun 1918in Bridgeport, WA.  She died while on an administrative flight. 

Betty Taylor Wood: b. March, 1921 in New Berlin, IL.  She died 23 September 1943 in a crash landing of an attack bomber.

Let us pay tribute to these women by honoring their memory...the memory of women whose sacrifices brought honor to their country and to themselves.  May we never forget.

Today's Columbus Day Quote

Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge. 

Author Unknown

Today's Quote... A True Hero

"Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences." 

Susan B. Anthony

Our Heroes

From the New York Times, 1921

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet, born June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, CT. was an American abolitionist and the author of the famous slavery novel, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', one of the most important novels in American history.  She died in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 6, 1896. 

Quote of the Day

Because women’s work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious and we’re the first to get fired and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it’s our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we’re nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we’re nymphos and if we don’t we’re frigid and if we love women it’s because we can’t get a “real” man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we’re neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect childcare we’re selfish and if we stand up for our rights we’re aggressive and “unfeminine” and if we don’t we’re typical weak females and if we want to get married we’re out to trap a man and if we don’t we’re unnatural and because we still can’t get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can’t cope or don’t want a pregnancy we’re made to feel guilty about abortion and…for lots of other reasons we are part of the women’s liberation movement.  

Author unknown, 
quoted in The Torch, 14 September 1987

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

"When women are seen with pen in hand, they are met immediately with shrieks commanding a return to that life of pain which their writing had interrupted, a life devoted to the women's work of needle and distaff."

Archangela Tarabotti

Archangela, born February 24, 1604 in Venice, Italy was a Benedictine nun and a writer. The eldest of nine children, her father forced her to give up her dreams and enter the convent because she was lame and considered unmarriageable. It was also custom among the Italian republic’s richer families. Archangela  took her final vows under protest and spent her life protesting the practice of forcing young girls to enter a convent against their will.

Her book, 'Paternal Tyranny' was not only  a passionate condemnation of the family who dumped her into the convent, but also a carefully argued carefully argued declaration against the oppression of women by the Venetian patriarchy. She died of consumption in Sant'Anna on February 28, 1652, at the age of forty-eight. Archangela was a feminist who lived way before her time.

 "See for yourself the absolute truth of my words! Go and ask one of these [male] children, who as yet cannot put two syllables together, let alone a whole word: "What will become of your sisters?" Immediately, without a moment's hesitation, prompted by that cunning disposition shaped by his father's upbringing, he will say, "They'll become nuns, because I want to be rich." -- book 1, 74

Remembering Yesterday"s Heroes

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves. 

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 

Mary, born August 30, 1797, was an English novelist.  Her mother, one of the foremost feminists her generation, Mary Wollstonecraft,  died from puerperal feverten days after the Mary's birth. By the time Mary was 19 had written one of the most famous novels ever published--Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus, first published in 1818. Mary was the wife of Percy Blythe Shelley.  

Sadly, throughout her life she suffered from psychosomatic illnesses and nervous attacks and died from a mysterious paralysis on February 1, 1851 and was buried between her mother and her father at St. Peter's churchyard in Bournemouth.

Today's Quote

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?

 Mary Manin Morrissey

Today's Quote

Goodbye, boys; I'm under arrest. I may have to go to jail. I may not see you for a long time. Keep up the fight! Don't surrender! Pay no attention to the injunction machine at Parkersburg. The Federal judge is a scab anyhow. While you starve he plays golf. While you serve humanity, he serves injunctions for the money powers.

Mother Jones--Just having been placed under arrest by a United States Marshall

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."

Marie Curie

Marie Curie, bornNovember 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, was  a  physicist and chemist. Her discovery of the mysterious element radium led to a basic change in our understanding of matter and energy. In December 1903, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded, Marie along with  Pierre Curie,and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel. During her lifetime, she also led the way to a new era for medical knowledge and the treatment of diseases. She died of aplastic anemia on July 4, 1934, believed to have been a result of her long-term exposure to radiation. 

Today's Quote

It is past time for women to take their rightful place, side by side with men, in the rooms where the fates of peoples, where their children’s and grandchildren’s fates, are decided.

Hillary Clinton

Today's Quote

I'm not afraid of storms,

for I'm learning to sail my ship.

 Louisa May Alcott

Friday Quote

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Lewis Carroll

Today's Quote

"The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race." 

Susan B. Anthony

British Suffragette Handbill

Women's Rights

You cannot rob us of the rights we cherish,

Nor turn our thoughts away

From the bright picture of a "Woman's Mission"

Our hearts portray.

We claim to dwell, in quiet and seclusion,

Beneath the household roof,--

From the great world's harsh strife, and jarring voices,

To stand aloof;--

Not in a dreamy and inane abstraction

To sleep our life away,

But, gathering up the brightness of home sunshine,

To deck our way.

As humble plants by country hedgerows growing,

That treasure up the rain,

And yield in odours, ere the day's declining,

The gift again;

So let us, unobtrusive and unnoticed,

But happy none the less,

Be privileged to fill the air around us

With happiness;

To live, unknown beyond the cherished circle,

Which we can bless and aid;

To die, and not a heart that does not love us

Know where we're laid.

>Annie Louisa Walker

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed.  If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes."  They will say, "Women don't have what it takes." 

Clare Boothe Luce

She was born March 10,1903 in New York City. Clare grew up to become an American playwright, the U.S. Representative from Connecticut, and diplomat. She was the first American woman appointed to a major ambassadorial post abroad when she became the ambassador to Italy in 1953. . Clare received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983. She died from a brain tumor in Washington, DC on October 9, 1987 at the age of 84 years, leaving most of her estate to the Henry Luce Foundation which established the Clare Booth Luce Program to encourage women to enter into the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering...a field where women continue to be underrepresented. It became the largest private source of funding for women in those fields.

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.

Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte, born April 21, 1816,, the eldest out of the famous Bronte sisters, was also  a British novelist. During her lifetime, she wrote Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Villette, and Shirley amongst numerous other books and poems.

Women Suffrage Banner, Washington, DC

Today's Quote

A woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.

 Susan B. Anthony

Today's Quote

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." 

Louisa May Alcott

Women's Suffrage

Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise

And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise?

When they pay the same taxes as you and me,

I consider they ought to have the same liberty.

And I consider if they are not allowed the same liberty,

From taxation every one of them should be set free;

And if they are not, it is really very unfair,

And an act of injustice I most solemnly declare.

Women, farmers, have no protection as the law now stands;

And many of them have lost their property and lands,

And have been turned out of their beautiful farms

By the unjust laws of the land and the sheriffs' alarms.

And in my opinion, such treatment is very cruel;

And fair play, 'tis said, is a precious jewel;

But such treatment causes women to fret and to dote,

Because they are deprived of the parliamentary Franchise vote.

In my opinion, what a man pays for he certainly should get;

And if he does not, he will certainly fret;

And why wouldn't women do the very same?

Therefore, to demand the parliamentary Franchise they are not to blame.

Therefore let them gather, and demand the parliamentary Franchise;

And I'm sure no reasonable man will their actions despise,

For trying to obtain the privileges most unjustly withheld from them;

Which Mr. Gladstone will certainly encourage and never condemn.

And as for the working women, many are driven to the point of starvation,

All through the tendency of the legislation;

Besides, upon members of parliament they have no claim

As a deputation, which is a very great shame.

Yes, the Home Secretary of the present day,

Against working women's deputations, has always said- nay;

Because they haven't got the parliamentary Franchise-,

That is the reason why he does them despise.

And that, in my opinion, is really very unjust;

But the time is not far distant, I most earnestly trust,

When women will have a parliamentary vote,

And many of them, I hope, will wear a better petticoat.

And I hope that God will aid them in this enterprise,

And enable them to obtain the parliamentary Franchise;

And rally together, and make a bold stand,

And demand the parliamentary Franchise throughout Scotland.

And do not rest day nor night-

Because your demands are only right

In the eyes of reasonable men, and God's eyesight;

And Heaven, I'm sure, will defend the right.

Therefore go on brave women! and never fear,

Although your case may seem dark and drear,

And put your trust in God, for He is strong;

And ye will gain the parliamentary Franchise before very long.

ax Plowman

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

Woman must not accept; she must challenge.

She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her;

she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.

 Margaret Sanger

This photo was taken of Margaret Sanger along with her sister Ethyl Byrne  on the steps of a courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, on January 8, 1917 during a trial accusing Sanger and others for opening a birth control clinic in New York. Both women were found guilty, and the clinic was shut down.

Our Heroes

Group portrait monument to the pioneers of the woman suffrage movement, which won women the right to vote in 1920.  The monument  was sculpted by Adelaide Johnson from an 8-ton block of marble in Carrara, Italy.

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

"I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people. I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false. But this knowledge does not outweigh the fact that my class, the working class, is exploited, driven, fought back with the weapon of starvation, with guns and with venal courts whenever they strike for conditions more human, more civilized for their children, and for their children's children."

Mary Harris Jones

Mother Jones was an Irish dressmaker and schoolteacher whose life was far from easy.  After losing her husband and four children  in a yellow fever epidemic, she moved back to Chicago; there, four years later, she lost everything in the Great Chicago Fire. She didn't give up on life, however; instead, she threw herself into working towards advancing political and social causes and became the most famous labor leader in the 19th century.  Today she is honored my the magazine that carries her name, "Mother Jones".  

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.

Amelia Earhart

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

"My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself to the usual lot of women who bow their heads and become concubines."

TrieuThi Trinh

Trieu Thi Trinh was a peasant woman who led an insurrection against Chinese invaders in 240 A.D. Vietnam. She has been called the Vietnamese Joan of Arc. While growing up, she had been treated as a slave by her brother, and when when she saw the Chinese treating her countrymen with the same cruelty, she escaped and raised an army of over a thousand rebels to rise up against the Chinese,  Her rebellion was successful, and the invaders became so frighten of her that they said 'it would be easier to fight a tiger than a lady queen.

However, in 248 A.D., the Chinese army fought and overtook the rebel army.  Lady Trieu was so disheartened that she committed suicide by leaping into a river.  Today, a national holiday honors her bravery. 

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

"...the Government must not think that they can stop this agitation. It will go on...We are here not because we are law-breakers; we are here in out efforts to become law-makers." 

Emmeline Pankhurst - WSPU, England, 1908

Emmeline Pankhurst, born in 1858, was a British political activist and one of the leaders of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. She died in 1928.

Quote of the Day

"Women's suffrage is the correlate of the economic emancipation of women from the household and of their economic independence from family owing to their professional work...With the sharpening of the class struggle, the question of women's suffrage rises in importance." 

From the First International Conference of Socialist Women - Stuttgart. 1907

Today's Quote

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.  

Roseanne Barr

Honoring Yesterday's Heroes

"How long are women to remain a wholly unrepresented body of the people? This is a question that has of late been agitated in England, and women in this colony read, watch, and reflect...Why should not New Zealand also lead?...Why has a woman to power to vote, no right to vote, when she happens to possess all the requisites which legally qualify a man for that right?" 

Femmina (Mary  Ann Muller) - New Zealand, 1869

Mary Ann Muller was born in 1819 or 1820 in London; she died July 18, 1901 in Blenheim.  Mary Ann was a New Zealand campaigner for women's suffrage and, more generally, women's rights. 

Today's Quote

“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.” 

 Helen Keller

Today's Quote

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got." 

Janis Joplin

Today's Quote

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." 

Margaret Mead

Suffragettes

What amazing women!   Without them, where would we be today. 

Suffragettes parading with banner "President Wilson favors votes for women". N.Y.C. ca.1916

America's first suffragette parade, marched up Broadway to Union Square, New York City, February 1905. The image shows men gathering to hear the suffragettes speak.

Today's Quote

"Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." 

Eleanor Roosevelt

Today's Quote

“The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.”  

 Susan B. Anthony

Today's Quote

"I am also very proud to be a liberal. Why is that so terrible these days? The liberals were liberators—they fought slavery, fought for women to have the right to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin, fought to end segregation, fought to end apartheid. Liberals put an end to child labor and they gave us the five day work week! What's to be ashamed of?"

Barbra Streisand

Quote of the Day

"There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers." 

Susan B. Anthony

Today's Quote

"We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever." 

Susan B. Anthony, Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876

Today's Quote

"For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women." 

Elizabeth Blackwell
(The first woman in the U.S. to become a physician)

Comfort The Women

Whence comes the rain that ceaselessly doth fall,

And seems to hold the bitter taste of tears?

Is it the lonely sorrow of the night

Where patient women shed their hopes and fears?

Where mothers' hearts, that are too brave to break,

Cry in the silence what they hid by day;

As from the tear-drenched pillow they arise,

Proud with the dawn, and shut their grief away?

Whence comes the rain? Is it from Angel eyes

That from the neutral plains of Heaven gaze

Upon this tortured earth? They hear us pray,

And see our strife, in pity and amaze;

Calling on Him, again so crucified,

In divers tongues each righteous cause to care;

Rage unto rage, hate unto hate, doth shake

The doors of Heaven with its impòtent prayer.

And shall my cry be heard, that calls so faint,

Through scream of shell and mighty cannon's roar,

Through thunder of the voices that appeal

For His protection at God's closèd door?

'Comfort the women, Lord, my neutral prayer

May reach Thy pity where those others fail;

Comfort the women in these warring lands

Who through the battles go, helpless and frail.'

Dim are their eyes that watch the marching past

Of all the splendid manhood and strong youth,

Breaking their hearts, who are so proudly still

Lest their beloved should suffer at the truth.

'Twas not for this barbarity of war

The mother breathless hung by the small cot

That held her man-child, fearing lest a wind

Would blow too chill, or sun would shine too hot.

Or stayed her swifter feet so he might run

Not lost behind, and with all gentle hand

Holding him hers, who now has left her lone.

Comfort the mothers, Lord, through each sad land.

Protect the women—they so helpless slain

By each sharp sword that strikes a dear one down,

Who on the battlefield in spirit go

Without the war's red splendour or renown.

Lord, 'mid this discord of Thy Christian world,

'Mid the loud praying of men's hopes and fears,

Comfort the women, let this cry be heard,

For Thou hast known a human mother's tears.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Today's Quote

When you finally escape the hold your abuser has on your mind you get a whole new outlook on life. There's an overwhelming sense of FREEDOM you get while finding yourself once again. You'll want to do things you haven't been able to do for a while. Its like being set free from prison. And sometimes being alone never felt so good!

Unknown