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March 8

03-08 TABLE of CONTENTS: DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by . The complete episode for this date... ...will be published here soon. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 03-08 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 03-08-1856, Mary Wright Plummer, librarian whose innovations included setting up the first art reference department and a children's library with child-sized furniture and easily reached shelves. B. 03-08-1861, Emily Perkins Bissell, welfare worker who led the first Christmas Seal drive (1907) to aid tubercular children. B. 03-08-1886, Alice Throckmorton McLean, president American Women's Voluntary Services in WWII with a working membership of more than 325,000 who did everything from selling bonds to teaching, to mechanical work to air raid defense management.       Her mother was one of the founders of the day nursery school movement. (Studied the British, Finnish, and Swiss volunteer organizations and founded the AWVS in 1940 as a private organization.)       At first no one knew what to do with the organization since the U.S. was still at peace and there was a prevailing belief among many politicians of isolationism and, of course, women's worthlessness except as mothers and housekeepers. The AWVS gave first aid classes and women joined by the thousands. They were involved in defense photography, map reading, child care, workshop, conservation, salvage, canteens, rehabilitation and motor transport, even fruit pickers. They sold a billion dollars worth of War Bonds. They took photographs of men and women in the service for their families back home, made and reconditioned clothing for children and babies, and chaufferred almost 400 military cars. They knew what to do even if the politicians didn't. B. 03-08-1896, Charlotte Elizabeth Whitton, Mayor, City of Ottawa, Canada (1951). B. 03-08-1903, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, British conductor and composer, first woman to direct the band of the H.M. Royal Marines, guest conductor of the BBC and London Symphony orchestra, and founder and conductor of the Malcolm Sargent Symphony. B. 03-08-1939, Lidiya Skoblikova, Russian athlete was first to win four Olympic winter games gold medals in one year and first to win a total of six in a lifetime. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR Coming soon... your patience is appreciated. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |