Women’s History Month 2015: Women on 20s

What a great movement to initiate during National Women’s History Month — getting women’s faces on our currency. How sad that while women make up more than half the population, we only see white men’s faces on our currency.

How might we look at this more equitably? How can we work together to put a woman’s face on the twenty dollar bill? Who should it be? I know Alice Paul is getting a lot of traction, as is the amazing Shirley Chisholm. I must confess, I am rather partial to seeing Rosa Parks on the twenty dollar bill, although I do love Eleanor Roosevelt.

 

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Women’s History: May 2

Happy Birthday, Inez Haynes Irwin

Happy Birthday, Inez Haynes Irwin. Irwin was probably best known for her work in journalism and for the suffragist movement. She was a member of the National Women’s Party, the party started by Alice Paul.  After the passage of the 19th Amendment, the NWP focused its attention the the Equal Rights Amendment. Irwin published many of her books under her former name, Inez Haynes Gillmore. Angel Island was a novel of Irwin’s that was so successful it was published three times, the first in 1914. In 1988 it was re-published as “early feminist” literature and includes an introduction by Portland’s Ursula K.Le Guin. Irwin published well over 40 books. Click here to learn more about Inez Haynes Irwin.

A Pictorial Journey Through Women’s History

Rosie the Riveter

Thanks, President Wilson

Alice Paul

Thank you to my friend Cheryl Fairchild for helping me collect many of these wonderful pictures.

Serving Time for a Worthy Cause

 

Celebrating Women’s History Month: March 3

Honoring Alice Paul

Today I would like to honor and pay tribute to Alice Paul and all of those women that fought for the right to vote for women, the passing of the 19th amendment.  On February 3, 1913, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated  as the President of the United States, yet the country’s attention was turned to the Suffragist Parade organized by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns.  The parade of suffragists were met with angry protesters that yelled epithets and threw cigars and other objects at the suffragists.  Of course, the police did nothing to protect the women in the parade.  Of course, the irony is that when Wilson had his stroke in 1919, it was his wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, who was running the country.

Alice Paul focused all of her energies and dedicated her life to fighting for equal rights for women. Paul had organized several non-violent protests against President Wilson and picketed the White House. Paul and others were convicted and incarcerated at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia and the District of Columbia Jail. In a protest of the conditions in Occoquan, Paul went on a hunger strike, which led to her being moved to the prison’s psychiatric ward and force-fed raw eggs through a feeding tube. For those of you that have not seen it, I would recommend seeing Iron Jawed Angles. While the movie is not perfect, it does show what these women like Alice Paul had to endure.  It should also be noted that Alice Paul was the original author of a proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which is now undergoing a revival. One can only hope it will finally pass. Today, I salute Alice Paul.

Women’s History, January 11

On January 11, 1935,  Amelia Earhart makes the first solo flight from Hawaii to California.

Happy Birthday, Eva Le Gallienne.  Le Gallienne founded and directing the Civil Repertory Company, New York, which sought to make classic theater to general audiences at low ticket prices.

Quote of the day:

Innovators are inevitably controversial.    Eva Le Gallienne

Happy Birthday, Alice Paul.  Ms. Paul was best known for being one of the leading figures responsible for the passage of the 19th Amendment (woman suffrage) to the U.S. Constitution.  She was also the founder of National Women’s Party (1916).  Later in 1923, Paul initiated the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

Alice Paul

Women’s History, December 28

Queen Mary II of England died.  She ruled with her husband/first cousin, William of Orange.  Unlike Mary I of England, Mary II was fearful that Catholicism was to be restored.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth Pinckney.  Pinckney was a British-American plantation manager known for the first successful cultivation of indigo in the United States. She sustained the Carolina economy for 30 years. Her sons Charles and Thomas were American Revolutionary soldiers and politicians.

Former First Lady Edith Wilson died on December 29, 1961.  While her husband was against the Suffragist Movement and continued to send women like Alice Paul, and Helen Keller to prison, it was Edith Wilson that was running the country as President during Wilson’s recuperation period after  his stroke.