Herstory - Sister to Sister

We all know his story (history). But what about HERSTORY

Half of the people in the world are woman, but you would not know it by reading history books. When men go to war, women's lives do not continue as they had been. When bad times come, women do not continue sitting on the varanda knitting.  When men become heroes, they are standing next to women heroines.  Men can not, and did not, do it alone. Men could not have done what the history books said they did without the help and support of women.  But men wrote the books.  At least in the past they did.  But now women are writing books her-story books.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, pen name Nancy Boyd

Feb 22, 1892, Rockland, Maine – Oct 19, 1950, New York

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night,

But oh, my foes, and oh, my friends

It gives a lovely light!

She graduated from Vassar College and received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to do so, and the Robert Frost Medal in 1943. She was known for her feminist activism.

She was an extrodanary woman and her light did not last the night. She was only 58 when she died. Look her up, start with Wikepedia. Her life is more like a movie or a book than a real, ordinary life.

12/5/2019, Stephanie Louise Kwolek,

July 31, 1923-June 18, 2014

in 1946, Kwolek earned a Bachelor of Science with major in chemistry and planned to become a doctor, hoping to pay for her medical education with money from a temporary job in the chemistry field. In 1946, due to a shortage of men because of the war, William Hale Charch offered her a position at DuPont's Buffalo, New York facility. She found the work interested and decided to stay.

While searching for a strong, but lightweight plastics to use in car tires, Kwolek discovered that a by produce usually thrown away could be made into what is know as Kevlar, five times stronger than steel by weight. This revolutionary fiber has saved countless lives in the form of bullet-proof vests, and is used in over 200 applications, such as bridge cables, sports equipment, cell phones and frying pans. Kwolek said, “I don't think there's anything like saving someone's life to bring you satisfaction and happiness.”

Kwolek signed over the Kevlar patent to the company. She has many patents, a long list of awards and was the first woman to file a patent in her own name. Until then, women traditionally filed patents in a man's name. Kwolek was the only female to receive DuPont's Lavoisier Medal. She was the fourth woman to be added to the National Inventors Hall of fame and received the National Medal of Technology, the Perkin Medal,  Howard N. Potts medal, the IRI Achievement award and the Perkin Meda.

11/07/2019 Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson, May 27, 1907-April 14, 1964, an American marine biologist and conservationist and is most famous for her book Silent Spring. She also wrote The Sea Around Us and The edge of the sea and Under the Sea Wind.

Rachel alerted the American people to the dangers of pollution and was instrumental in a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticide and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Rachel's mother, an educator, encouraged Rachel to read, explore and learn. Rachel explored her family's 65-acre farm and began writing stores, often about animals.  At age eight she began writing and was first published at age ten. Her two loves were writing and biology. She attended Pennsylvania College for Women and graduated magna cum laude in 1929.  She continued her studies in  zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins. She earned a master's degree in zoology in June 1932. She had intended to continue for a doctorate, but in 1934 she was forced to leave Johns Hopkins to search for a full-time teaching position to help support her family during the Great Depression.

Rachel discovered DDT and other pesticides were devastating to the ecology and caused cancer. Even when she was dying from cancer herself, she continued to fight her chosen battle.

When Rachel first got cancer, she had surgery and the doctor told her she was fine. However, the doctor lied, he knew he did not get all the cancer and it would spread. He did not tell her because doctors at that time did not discuss such things with women whom they believed could not deal with such serious issues. The doctors would discuss the problem and possible treatment with the husband. But she had no husband so she was not told and she was denied treatment that may have saved her life.

7/10/2019, Charlotte Maria Shaw Mason,

January 1, 1842 – January 16, 1923

“Don't waste time on twaddle”. I heard this quote somewhere. I believe my daughter was the source. Her twins boys have to be home schooled for medical reason and she is an admirer of Charlotte Mason. I liked the quote, "Don't waste time on twaddle." I decided it was worth a blog. So I looked up Charlotte Mason on Wikipedia. Wow, she was amazing.

Charolette believed that parents and teachers should "Provide a child with what he needs in the way of instruction, opportunity, and wholesome occupation, and his character will take care of itself: for normal children are persons of good will, with honest desires toward right thinking and right living. All we can do further is to help a child to get rid of some hindrance––a bad temper, for example––likely to spoil his life."

Charlotte believed in children and obviously loved them and believed that children were born persons and should be respected as such. Her motto for students was "I am, I can, I ought, I will." She was an advocate for better education for home schooled children and children attending public and private schools.  She wrote amazing books for children, parents and educators. She spent her life working for the betterment of education for children and was involved in Scounting for boys and Girl Guides for girls.

More information can be found on wikipedia and your local library

10/16/19, Helen Reddy,

feminist and popular singer,

Helen's most popular and well known song, and one of my favorite, is I Am Woman. Read more about Helen's life and her contribution to music and feminism.

I Am Woman

Helen Reddy

I am woman, hear me roar

In numbers too big to ignore

And I know too much to go back an' pretend

'Cause I've heard it all before

And I've been down there on the floor

No one's ever gonna keep me down again

[Chorus:]

Oh yes I am wise

But it's wisdom born of pain

Yes, I've paid the price

But look how much I gained

If I have to, I can do anything

I am strong (strong)

I am invincible (invincible)

I am woman

You can bend but never break me

'Cause it only serves to make me

More determined to achieve my final goal

And I come back even stronger

Not a novice any longer

'Cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul

[Chorus]

I am woman watch me grow

See me standing toe to toe

As I spread my lovin' arms across the land

But I'm still an embryo

With a long long way to go

Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes I am wise

But it's wisdom born of pain

Yes, I've paid the price

But look how much I gained

If I have to I can face anything

I am strong (strong)

I am invincible (invincible)

I am woman

Oh, I am woman

I am invincible

I am strong

I am woman

I am invincible

I am strong

I am woman

Songwriters: HELEN REDDY, RAY BURTON

4/9/19, Annie Jump Cannon

Annie Jump Cannon was born December 11, 1863 in Dover, Delaware. Her father was Wilson Cannon, a shipbuilder and state senator and her mother was Cannon's second wife, Mary Jump.  Her mother taught her constellations using an old astronomy textbook and encouraged her to study math, chemistry and biology at Wellesley College.

Cannon studied physics and astronomy at Wellesley College for women and became the valadictorian with a degree physics in 1884. The next decade she spent perfecting her photography skills.  

She became almost deaf from scarlet fever. In 1894, her mother died and life become more difficult. She was hired by her professor, Sarah Frances Whiting, as a junior physic teacher at Wellesley. She took graduate courses in physics and astronomy and learned about spectroscopy. She continuded her studies at Radcliffe College and had use of a better telescope. Nearby Harvard professors gave lectures to the Radcliffe women and she was allowed to use the Harvard College Observatory.   In 1907, Canon finished her studies and received her masters from Wellesley

In 1896, Cannon became a member of a group of women  that assisted Edward C. Pickering in completing the Henry Draper Catalogue with the goal of mapping and classifying stars. Cannon classified over 350,000 stars in her lifetime.  She was faster than any one else and could classify 200 stars an hour.

Cannon and the other women working on the star classification were, at first, criticized for not being housewives. They were only paid 25 cents an hour, worked seven hours a day and six days a week.   

The classifying system she created was adopted formally May 9, 1922.  In 1938, she became the William C. Bond Astronomer at Harvard University

Cannon died April 13, 1941 at the age of 77. The American Astronomical Society created the Annie Jump Cannon Award that is presented annually to female astronomers for distinguished work in astronomy

Her list of awards is too long to list here.

1/30/19, Joycelyn Bell Burnell, physicist

Joycelyn thought she was admitted to Cambridge by mistake, not believing she was smart enough to be at Cambridge. She was one of two women attending at the time and worked hard as she could because she felt she did not belong.

After two years, she discovered a squiggle on the radio telescope. She informed her PhD supervisor, Antony Hewish of the discovery. Now that she knew what to look for, she discovered others. In 1974, her supervisor won a Nobel Prize for the discovery of pulsar stars, but Joycelyn was not mentioned.

In 2018, she was awarded three million dollars and the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. She donated the money to fund women, under-represented ethnic minority and refugee students to become physics researchers.

Although she did not get a Nobel Prize, she has received dozens of awards and honors and is currently teaching astronomy at Oxford University.

1/14/2019, Sybil Lundington,

War heroine during our independence war with England

Paul Revere, William Dawes and Jack Jouett rode twelve miles on well worn roads to warn that the British were coming. There were others that also rode to warn of the arrival of the British. Paul Revere was captured by the British and did not finish the ride.

There were about forty messengers riding that night, one was was sixteen year old Sybil Ludington, oldest of twelve children born to Colonel Henry Ludington and Abigail Knowles.

The messenger that brought the information about the British coming was too exhausted to ride further. Sybil's father was in command of the troops that were on their way to join him and could not leave. Sybil was the only one available to make the ride.

On the night of April 26, 1777, Sybil rode forty miles through woods until dawn dodging British troops and thieves to spread the word, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” to the citizens of Danbury. Actually, it was not 'The British are coming' that was shouted because everyone considered themselves to be British. It was “The Regulars are coming! The Regulars are coming!”

Previously, Incobod Prosserf and fifty royalist surrounded the Ludington house at night believing it would be easy to capture Subil's father while he was home with his family. The Colonel was not home. But the family was. Sybil placed candles about the house and had her siblings march around in the dim light to looked as if there were a lot of solders in the house. The British believed the ruse and creep off into the night.

Sybil was a heroine not once, but twice. And she was a female that was only sixteen.

Reference:

Wikipedia

Rejected Princesses, tales of history's boldest heroines, hellions. & heretics by Jason Porath

11/22/2918, Hypatia

Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician in ancient Alexandria, Egypt

Born in any century, Hypatia would have been a super woman. Two thousand years ago, she was the leading mathematician and philosopher in Alexandria and the known world despite being a female. Hypatia is not the earliest female scientist, but she is the first about whom much is know.

Hypatia was born about 355 to Theon of Alexandria, a mathematician and astronomer who was the last attested member of the Library of Alexandria. Sadly, her mother's name is not known. Hypatia, a pagan, was respected and consulted by Jews, Christians and pagans.

The Library of Alexandria was destroyed by at least one earthquake and several fires, the last set by the army of Julius Caesar, Scholars then used the smaller daughter library at the Serapeum of Alexandria, a pagan temple, until it was destroyed in 391 AD by Coptic Pope Theophilus.

Although many men pursued her, Hypatia chose to remain unmarried and childless in order to devote her time to her work. She advanced knowledge in mathematics and astronomy and continued the work her father had begun.

Rome sent Orestes to govern Alexandria. Orestes had heard of Hypatia and was eager to met her. They became close friends and Orestes often consult with her. The new bishop, Cyril, resented Hypatia and Orestes' relationship. He wanted Orestes to listen only to him.

Bishop Cyril told people that Hypatia was a witch and cast spells on the important people of Alexandria in order to control them. In March of 415 a mob of Christians, including monks, pulled the sixty year old woman from her chariot and skinned her alive with oyster shells and/or roof tiles before murdering her on the floor of a Christian church. They believed that without her skin, she could not have an after life.

Hypatia was vilified and murdered in a gruesome manner, not because she was a woman, but because she was in the way of a powerful Christian Bishop. But it was probably easier for Cryril to get away with the horrendous murder because she was only a woman.

Hypatia believed it was better to think wrong than to not think at all. She was so amazing that it would take a book to tell all, or at least most, about this amazing woman. For more information go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia. It will not be a waste of your time

Reference

Wikipedia

Britannica

Super Women in Science by Kelly Di Domenico

100 Unknown Women Who Built Cities, Sparked Revolutions, & Massively Crushed It by Hannah Jewell