08-11 TABLE of CONTENTS:
Women Historians are Remaking the
Historical Landscape
Lorenzo's Oil
Developer of Aspen as a "Ski
Resort with Culture" Sees it Overrun by Glitz
Grace Ogot, Kenyan Novelist
Queen Esther of the Seneca Tribe
of Indians
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTES by
Mary Beard, Dorothy Sayers, and U.S. Supreme Court.
Women Historians are Remaking the Historical Landscape
"Historians went their accustomed way, writing
about men and the things men do, and calling their work 'history'... then
in the 1960's things began to change. There had always been some historians
who went beyond or behind politics to the society itself, who examined
the way people lived and what they though about and what their most deeply
held values were.
"In the 1960's this view and the kinds of questions
it engendered began to spread. This new social history attracted many young
scholars and gave rise to an ever-increasing amount of exciting work. The
techniques, which made it possible to ask and answer question about large
numbers of hitherto unexamined groups, provided an added impetus to the
growing concern with the history of society.
"All this was going on as a resurgent feminism
stirred many women to wonder about the lives and experiences of their mothers
and grandmothers and all the other women who had lived and died unnoticed
since the first European settlement. Some even began to wonder about the
women who were here.... and about the African women brought here against
their will. Feminism also emboldened an increasing number of women to seek
advanced training and to become professional historians. The combination
of these developments has led to an explosion of studies about women and
families which are remaking the historical landscape."
--Suzanne
Lebsock, A Share of Honour: Virginia Women 1600-1945. Richmond,
Virginia: The Virginia Women's Cultural History Project, 1984.
[WOAH Note: There were always some women
historians such as Mary E. Beard who initially co-wrote such books as The
Beards' Basic History of the United States that included (shock!) WOMEN.
Her Women as a Force in History is a classic.
However, until the advent of women's studies courses,
such books found no place in the male viewed teaching hierarchy of academia.
To paraphrase Virginia Woolf, men historians only
read and taught about figures who they recognized in their shaving mirrors.
Not only were women written out of our histories, but major developments
in cultures and countries outside of our own were ignored. Women are now
undeleting their histories. How people lived is becoming more important
than how armies died.]
Filmmaker/writer Jan Oxenberg's 1991 award-winning
documentary Thank You and Good Night chronicles the death of her
grandmother with a portrait of her life and their relationship. She has
also won an award for her episode about abortion in the PBS Nothing
Sacred.
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Lorenzo's Oil
Michaela Odone and her husband who had
no medical training developed a treatment for her son's rare disease that
inspired the movie Lorenzo's Oil.
Faced with a rare degenerative brain disease, adrenoleukodystrophy,
MO and her husband developed a combination of olive and rapeseed oils to
keep their son Lorenzo alive. He had been in a vegetative state and the
oil treatments allowed him to communicate in a limited way through hand
signals.
Studies on the oil that was developed by the Odones
showed the treatment actually worked about half the time when administered
in the disease's early stages.
When Lorenzo was 22 and, according to his father,
holding his own, Michaela Odone died of lung cancer.
A 1992 movie starring Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte
chronicled Michaela and Augusto Odone's fight to save Lorenzo.
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Developer of Aspen as a "Ski Resort with Culture"
Sees it Overrun by Glitz
Elizabeth Paepchke, a Chicago philanthropist
who fell in love with the Aspen, Colorado, view developed the sleepy mining
community into a ski resort with culture. It became known as "An
Athens of the West," an internationally
known center of intellectual dialogue, music, and the arts, as well as
a famous ski resort.
Early in their marriage, she had prevailed on her
husband to use recognized artists instead of commercial art in advertising,
which resulted in the "Great Ideas of
Western Man" campaign, a turning point
in the content of advertising and a cornerstone of their wealth. She was
unhappy at the change in Aspen in the 1980's saying,"Aspen
had become a town of glitz and glamour... a nut without a kernel. My heart
is broken."
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Grace Ogot, Kenyan Novelist
Grace Ogot, a Kenyan novelist's interest in the
occult inspired her first novel The Promised Land about a family
driven from their Tanzanian home through the use of witchcraft. A trained
nurse, she worked in London and Nairobi before marrying and turning to
writing. Her short stoies which often turn on occult experiences are highly
regarded.
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Queen Esther of the Seneca Tribe of Indians
"In
the enemy's (Indian) ranks some of the women were foremost in the work
of carnage. Esther, the queen of the Seneca tribe of Indians - a fury in
female form - it is said, took upon herself the office of executioner,
passing with her tomahawk round the circle of prisoners, counting with
a cadence and sinking the weapon into the heads of victims. In the journal
of one of Sullivan's officers, her plantation is described as 'an extensive
plain near the Susquehanna where she dwelt in sullen retirement.' "
-- Elizabeth F. Ellet, The Women of the American Revolution (1849)
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08-11 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
B. 08-11-1823, Charlotte Mary Yonge - English novelist who wrote
of high mindedness and romance. Her novels all portrayed the eventual victory
of virtue, especially for a woman. She sought to return the Church of England
to the standards of the 17th century and used her "idealistic"
writing as a means of influence.
B. 08-11-1836, Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt
- U.S. poet with 17 volumes to her credit. SMBP was very popular and
critically admired, her later books were simultaneously published in American
and England.
Following her mother's
death when SMBP was eight, she was passed around relatives until she settled
with her aunt and attended the prestigious Henry Female College in Kentucky.
Her lifelong "sadness and reserve" is attributed to her unsettled
childhood, although she wrote extensively about children, sometimes from
a child's view. She had eight children.
A number of critics considered
her a poet of great intensity but her poetry has passed out of favor.
B. 08-11-1862, Carrie Jacobs Bond - U.S. songwriter. She was
spurred into selling her compositions by the practical reason that she
had to provide a livelihood for her family.
She had been left a penniless
widow with a baby son and earning her living running a boarding house and
painting china. She had written songs before her marriages (her first ended
in divorce) and was able to supplement her income by giving recitals in
private homes.
Her growing popularity
gave her courage to start her own publishing company. Using borrowed money,
the Carrie Jacobs-Bond and Son Publishing Company became highly successful
printed the sheet music to her songs.
Wildly popular in her
day, the perennial favorite "I Love You Truly" made her a wealthy
woman but it was "When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day"
that was the most popular of all, selling more than 5 million copies of
the sheet music. She wrote about 400 songs and published slightly less
than half.
Critics point to her
sentimental style that went out of favor after World War I as a defect,
but with such a fertile imagination and obvious ability, one would have
to believe that if she had been born 100 years later, she'd have been a
rock star.
Her autobiography is
The Roads of Melody (1927).
B. 08-11-1873, May Wilson Preston - U.S. artist and illustrator.
MWP's work was published
in the major magazines of her day and is increasing in value today.
She became the first
woman member (for a long time the only woman) of the Society of Illustrators
and founding member of the National Association of Women Artists. MWP was
active in the woman's suffrage movement.
Although she married
a member of the Ashcan school of realistic urban art and exhibited with
them at times, she is not considered one of them. Her work appeared in
Harper's Bazaar, Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal,
and others, usually to illustrate the work of noted authors. A skin infection
made work difficult in later years.
B. 08-11-1897, Louise Bogan - U.S. poet. LB was chair of poetry
at the Library of Congress, poetry critic for New Yorker magazine for 37
years (1931-1969), and a distinguished poet in her own right.
Although highly admired,
she never seemed to fulfill her promise. The ear was excellent, her cadence
and language pure, but she held the world and emotion outside herself.
Her mother was tempestuous
and often disappeared for lengthy periods of time which may have contributed
to LB's inability to maintain close relationships. LB married twice and
had one daughter.
She suffered from lifelong
depressive periods and had several emotional collapses.
LB was sole support of
her daughter and her father. She formed close, non-romantic, professional
friendships with Margaret Mead, Elizabeth Mayer, May Sarton, and Elizabeth
Roget. Her final collection The Blue Estuaries: Poems, 1923-1968
(1968) presents her finest work.
B. 08-11-1912, Jean Parker Montana - U.S. actor.
B. 08-11-1922, Mavis Gallant - Canadian short story writer and novelist.
Although she settled in France, she considered herself primarily a Canadian.
She traveled widely.
Most of her short stories
were published in The New Yorker magazine.
Her father deserted the
family and MG felt she was sent away to schools to get her out of the way
when her mother remarried. "Green Water, Green Sky," "A
Fairly Good Time," and "Home Truths" are considered her
best stories by many.
B. 08-11-1924, Arlene Dahl - U.S. actor and frequent panelist
on TV shows of the 50s and 60s.
B. 08-11-1934, Diana Scott Beattie - U.S. professor biochemistry
(1976), Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York City.
B. 08-11-1937, Anna Massey - U.S. actor.
B.
08-11-1941, Elizabeth Holtzman,
U.S. Representative from New York who was very active in the ERA battle
and a supporter of women's rights.
Her congressional biography
reads in part:
(She
defeated the incumbent who opposed the Equal Rights Amendment and favored
the war in Vietnam.) In addition to her work on the impeachment hearings
in her initial term in the House, Holtzman in 1973 filed suit to halt American
military action in Cambodia. A district court ruled the Cambodian invasion
unconstitutional, but the Court of Appeals reversed the decision.
As a member of the Judiciary Committee she also contributed
to the formulation of new rules for the presentation of evidence in federal
courts and worked to revise immigration laws... In 1978 she helped win
an extension of the ratification deadline for the Equal Rights Amendment.
She also helped secure a prohibition on sex discrimination in federal programs.
(Her attempt to move on to the U.S. senate was unsuccessful, losing to
the Republican.) In 1981 she was elected District Attorney of Brooklyn
and served in that office until she was elected Comptroller of New York
City in November 1989. She served as Comptroller from 1990 until 1994.
In 1992 she was again an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate.
She resumed the practice of law; is a resident of Brooklyn, N.Y. Bibliography:
Holtzman, Elizabeth J., with Cynthia L. Cooper, Who Said It Would Be
Easy?: One Woman's Life in the Political Arena. New York: Arcade, 1996.
Event 08-11-1943: A few Women of the Air Service Pilots (WASPs)
were assigned to fly tiny planes - PQ-8's - from the factory to March Field
- across country.
The planes are so small
that the women have to sit on their parachutes with their legs stuck straight
out. Most of the cockpit space was used by radio equipment - but there
no ground-to-plane communications. (Any wonder they were given to the women
to fly? It is unlikely that men would have put up with such conditions.)
The little planes were drones to be used for gun crews to shoot at.
There were no manuals
and their capabilities are unknown. The WASPs are ordered to land every
hour until they can determine how far the planes can fly on a tank of gas!
The altitude capabilities
of the planes are also not known and the Sierra mountains were in their
path. They take the southern route near El Paso.
Flight leader Byrd Granger
(who authored the book from which this story is taken) said their orders
were to fly along the road as they climbed the Guadelupe Pass because "if
the planes wouldn't go high enough, they were to land on the road and taxi
over the pass!"
Granger wrote,
"Members of the flight know what the order
is... what the leader does, they will do. Come to think about it, it might
be fun to drive these toys through the pass... A special angel rides with
them, for there is no slope downdraft and they clear the pass one by one,
with maybe 30 feet to space. Joyfully the five WASPS swoop like swallows....
"The
women, each exceptional pilots, are doing the almost impossible.
"But
their reception at air fields as they grasshopper across country was not
warm. Men resented seeing women in military planes. (Psychologists would
later explain that the terrible animosity shown toward the women was because
of fear. The men knew that if women did the 'safe' flying jobs at home,
they were more likely to be sent overseas to the shooting war. There was
also the man's image. If a woman could do it, where was the glory for a
man?"
One of the wooden
propellers was damaged in refueling but the military base C.O. refused
to replace it. "You get this thing off my field,
you hear!"
Tiny bits of wood
began peeling from the prop and the WASP pilot is forced to land at a B-
24 base... "the vibrations were teeth chattering,"
Granger wrote.
"Immediately
on landing, military police surrounded the plane and the pilot was escorted
to the C.O.
"He
is one angry man," Granger said. "But,
unlike the other C.O. that sent the woman to her almost certain death with
a defective propeller, he at least listens! The propeller is replaced but
the treatment is typical of what the women faced as they risked their lives
flying military planes, getting them ready for the war overseas."
The flight leader
with the bad prop is Byrd who wrote about the incident in the third person:
"No one at the El Paso airfield was interested
in the visible crack in the airling propellor... flight members stay close
to Granger's plane after they leave El Paso. If she goes down, they are
to note her position and fly on to get help... the flight crosses the Arizona
border. The vibration is worse. Tiny bits of wood, mere splinters, peel
from the prop... she is forced to land at a B-24 base... the vibrations
are teeth chattering...
"Within minutes Flight Leader Granger (escorted
by two M.P.'s) is standing at attention in the C.O.'s office... he is one
angry man. Why have those little whatchamaycallums landed on a B-24 base?
- 'Emergency, sir.' - 'Why did you land without calling in?' - 'Lots of
radio equipment on board but not air-to-ground radio'
-- (the story unfolds and a VERY angry C.O. tells
his command to get a new propeller installed and promises Granger that
he will personally take care of the C.O. who ordered her off his field
without replacing the propeller.)"
When the women get
to March Field they can't land because a PQ already there is doing strange
things - appearing to land and then veering off. Finally the women pilots
holding formation in the air watch it land. The pilot gets out and collapses.
It turns out that there
was no pilot onboard. The man was a radio operator who took what he thought
was a radio controlled ride to check the equipment - and the plane went
out of control with him in it. The little whatchamaycallum, the PQ-8 made
several aborted landings all by itself, circled and then came on again.
Its fuel exhausted, it makes a perfect landing. The very frightened radio
operator gets out of the little plane and collapses. He is taken away in
an ambulance.
Granger wrote a very
exhaustive report on the WASPs that was privately printed. The report verified
what had happened to the women in 1943 and 1944 in the air and on military
bases where they couldn't get medical care, warm blankets, and sometimes,
not even food. The report was instrumental in getting Congress to finally
award women military benefit in 1977 - a 44 year wait. Many of the women
had died, including Byrd Granger who did not live to see the victory. She
died shortly after she finished the book.
B. 08-11-1946, Marilyn Vos Savant - U.S. writer with the world's
highest IQ according to the Guinness book of records.
B. 08-11-1952, Ann Michelle England - U.S. actor.
B. 08-11-1954 Lina Polito - Italian-U.S. actor.
Event 08-11-1972: Colonel Norma E. Brown became the first woman
to command a mixed-sex company in he U.S. Air Force. On 12-10-1973, Colonel
Mary E. Bane will become commanding officer of the Headquarters and Service
Command at Camp Pendleton.
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QUOTES DU JOUR
BEARD, MARY:
"At a large
gathering of men belonging to the American Association for the Advancement
of Science... during the lull between two world wars, William Wheeler,
professor economic entomology at Harvard University assured his audience
that man is the real instigator of progress.
" 'Throughout the ages,' said this profound student
of ants and bees, 'the aggressiveness, curiosity, unstable, intelligence,
contentiousness, and other anti-social tendencies which the man inherited
from his anthropoidal ancestors have kept society in a constant turmoil...
The restlessly questing intellect, driven by the dominant impulses of the
mammalian male, furnishes the necessary stimulus to progress in human societies.
Feminine societies are indeed harmonious, but stationary and incapable
of further development. If woman ran society, as among such insects as
ants, bees, and wasps, the men merely would be tolerated as necessary for
reproduction. The important difference (between insects and man) lies,
I believe, in what I call the problem of the male, which has been
successfully solved by the social insects but not be human societies.'
"
-- As quoted in Mary Beard's Woman as a Force in History, pp. 69-70.
"In
that vast domain of writings and speaking known as general literature or
polite letters, including both creative and critical works, the image of
women drawn by men are so varied as almost to defy classification.
"There the whole gamut of men's emotions, from
love and admiration to neglect, hate, and contempt, is run; and it is often
difficult to discover whether the portraits of women are intended to be
evaluated by standards of cleverness or by accepted evidence of truth.
"But whether such views of women created by men
are sampled at random or examined wholesale in any huge collection of books
and reviews, one distinct type of image appears with insistent regularity.
"It is the image of woman as not much of anything
measured by man's standards of intellectual excellence."
-- Women as a Force in History
(1946)
SAYERS, DOROTHY:
"A desire to
have all the fun is nine-tenths of the law of chivalry."
1
U.S. SUPREME COURT:
"Because
abortion involves the purposeful termination of POTENTIAL LIFE, the abortion
decision must be recognized as... different in kind from the rights protected
in the earlier cases under the rubric or personal or family privacy and
autonomy."
-- U.S. Supreme Court's minority
decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey.
(This decision unleashed a new tactic for the anti-rights for women forces.
They now seek to have life declared at the moment of conception so the
embryo has the same - actually more - rights as the woman.)
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