Catherine Ann "Kate" Barnard

Catherine Ann “Kate” Barnard was born on May 23, 1875 in Geneva, Nebraska.   

At the age of seventeen she became a school teacher, taught for three years and then became a stenographer. In 1901 she was appointed clerk and stenographer for the Democratic minority in the territorial  legislature at Guthrie. In 1904 she was sent to work for the Oklahoma Commission at the St.Louis World’s Fair, where she noticed unemployment, urban poverty and horrible working conditions. She listened to discussions by social science experts who suggested solutions.  She returned home determined to get legislation passed to protect Oklahoma from the same poor conditions she had witnessed in St. Louis. 

“…I stood at the mouth of a burning coal mine. Fire leaped high through the only entrance. Fifteen men were hopelessly cut off below. The smell of their burning flesh came up to us on the crest of the flame.  A woman, clothed in only one garment, with three children clinging to it, and a babe in her arms, peered into the pit. Her husband was below.  She cried out, and going suddenly insane, tried to leap down to join him. 

There was only one reason why that nine should have but one entrance; it would cost money to provide another.  Then and there i determined to consecrate myself to the remedy.”

Her first success came in 1906 when she was at the Shawnee Convention which was a gathering of Oklahoma Farmers Union, the American Federation of Labor and four of the railroad brotherhoods.  Barnard was a delegate of the AFL and urged the abolishment of child labor and initiation of compulsory education. Democratic party leaders adopted her reform proposals for their platform at the constitutional convention a year later.  As a result she had a major role in writing the State’s constitution. At her suggestion they also created an elective office of Commissioner of Charities and Corrections for which Kate campaigned tirelessly and won. She was the first woman to win a statewide elective office in the United States. 

She served two terms during which she created a lasting body of reform legislation which improved conditions for the mentally ill, convicts, child and adult laborers and widows.  She launched an investigation into the Indian land scandals involving the defrauding of Indian minors of their timber, oil and gas rights and farmland. She also became administrator of the United Provident Association (later the United Way) in 1905. 

Her1908 investigation of the treatment of Oklahoma prisoners held in a Kansas prison rated national headlines and enhanced her reputation as a reformer. Her efforts resulted in the repatriation of the convicts and the subsequent creation of a three-tier state prison system consisting of a penitentiary, a reformatory, and a boys' training school.

Mary Washburn Shinn

Milicent Washburn Shinn was born April 15, 1858 in Niles, California.  She completed a A.B. degree at the University of California. It took her six years because she periodically had to take time off to earn enough money to continue. 

In 1880 Milicent began to contribute prose and poetry to The Californian.  In 1883 she acquired the periodical and changed it’s name to Overland Monthly and was it’s editor for the next eleven years. In 1894 she sold the successful paper and gave up her editorship.  She continued to submit her essays and poems though.

When her niece was born in 1890 she became very interested in child development. She kept precise records of the baby’s mental and physical progress which she published as Notes on the Development of a Child. As a result she was invited to speak at the world’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.  She was quite surprised at the attention her work received.  She had done the research for her own edification and enjoyment, not with any scientific aspirations.  She was astonished to learn that such records were not common. As a result of her presentation Shinn received several invitations for graduate study at prestigious institutions such as Stanford, John Hopkins and Clark University.   Milicent chose to return  to her alma mater, the University of California to earn her Ph.D.  She was the first woman and only the eleventh person to receive a Ph.D. from the school.

Her work in psychology was very well received and brought her attention in both the United States and abroad. Her second book, The Biography of a Baby, was published in 1900.  Shortly afterwards she retired to the family ranch in Niles where she lived quietly doing charity and church work.  She was also active in her college alumnae association.

March, Women's History Month

Highlighting the vital role played by women in history is the goal of HerStory.  Women have always been driven by their dreams which has resulted in amazing accomplishments. We draw inspiration and strength from those who came before us.  They are part of our own story .  Only through an inclusive and balanced “history”  can we know and celebrate how important women have always been in our country in society and in the world. We celebrate Women’s History Month each year in March which highlights the contributions of women to historical events as well as events in contemporary times. It is celebrated in the U.S. the U.K and Australia. 

In the U.S. wWomen’s History Month dates back to 1910/11  in remembrance of a strike of the international Ladies Garment Workers Union that took place in Chicago, known as the Hart, Scahffner and Marx strike. Women showed their capability to unify ethnic boundaries in response to an industry infamous for low wages, long hours -sometimes 75 hours a week- and poor conditions.  The strike began with sixteen women protesting, soon 2,100 others joined and eventually 41,000 women walked off the job and stayed out for 14 weeks until some of their demands for better conditions were met. 

Later, it commemorated the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 in Manhattan when 146 women perished. They were mostly young, some only teens who were immigrants and spoke little or no english, and were working 12 hours a day every day. They either died in the fire that broke out of the eighth floor of the wood frame building or died as a result of jumping out the windows to the sidewalks below. They couldn’t escape because the doors were locked to prevent them from stealing or taking unauthorized breaks.  An unauthorized break often meant taking time out to run down 8 flights of stairs to use the outhouse located in the back yard of the factory.

In the words of President Carter in 1980: "From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the First American Indian families who befriended them, men AND women have worked together to build this nation.  Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed.  But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know well." 

Mary Sewall Gardner

This is dedicated to all public health nurses, but especially those working in Montezuma County.  You are amazing and do fantastic work.  I honor you. 

Mary Sewall Gardner was born on February 5, 1871 in Newton, Mass.  When she was 4, her mother died.  Her father soon remarried and his new wife was a medical doctor.  Mary's early education was in private boarding schools but in 1890 she returned home in order to nurse her invalid stepmother. She also engaged in community work.


At the age of 30 she enrolled in the Newport Rhode Island Hospital Training School  Mary had been greatly inspired by her stepmother and wanted to become a physician herself.  When she completed the four year training there, she assumed the role of superintendent of nurses of the Providence District Nursing Association.  The organization blossomed under her direction and actually became a working model for other district nursing associations.

In 1912 mary and another nurse founded the National Organization of Public Health Nursing.  She served as president and was instrumental in creating the monthly periodical Public Health Nursing, where she contributed many articles and editorials.

When World War I broke out,  Mary took a leave of absence and went to Italy, where she took up the post of chief nurse with the American Red Cross Tuberculosis Commission.  She established a training school for Italian women who wished to become nurses.

In 1916 Mary published her book, Public Health Nursing, which was considered her greatest contribution to her profession.  The book was revised twice and published in several languages.  It is considered a classic.

In recognition of er pioneering efforts in public health nursing, she received an honorary master's degree from Brown University.  Shw also received the Walter Burns Saunders Medal for distinguished service to nursing.

Ann Preston

Ann Preston

Ann was born December 1, 1813 in the Quaker settlement of West Grove in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia. She attended school but also helped care for her six younger siblings as her mother’s health was poor.  She was also active in the local anti-slavery society.

When her siblings grew to be more independent she began teaching.  At this time she also became interested in physiology and recognizing the need for more information on the subject, she initiated classes in female physiology and hygiene for women and girls.

In 1847 she embarked on a two year apprenticeship with Dr. Nathaniel Moseley in Philadelphia. Completing the apprenticeship she applied to four medical colleges in Pennsylvania but was rejected solely because she was female. In 1850 a group of Quakers founded the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania to meet the needs of the many women seeking a career in medicine.  Just shy of her thirty seventh birthday Ann enrolled in the first class with seven other women.

After graduating she remained at the college as a professor of physiology and hygiene.  In 1858 she initiated a fundraising campaign to build a woman’s hospital in connection with the college to provide hands on clinical instruction.

In 1866 Ann was appointed dean of the Woman’s Medical College, the first woman to hold that position. She applied for permission for her students to attend general clinics at the Philadelphia Hospital but was met with demonstrations by male medical students protesting the impropriety of educating men and women in medicine together.  She fought this narrow-mindedness saying women were patients and it was “in accordance with the instincts of the truest womanhood for women to appear as physicians and students.”  Philadelphia newspapers published her comments.

Carrie Adell Green Strahorn

Carrie Adell Green Strahorn was born on January 1, 1854 to a family of “old settlers” in Merengo, Illinois.  Her father had been a surgeon serving in the Civil War under Ulysses S. Grant.  He encouraged all three of his daughters to get as much education as they wished. Adell graduated from the University of Michigan and studied voice in both the United States and Europe. She enjoyed a comfortable life and listening to tales of her elders she vowed that she would “never be a pioneer.”  

However, for over thirty years she traveled thousands of miles by stage, saddle and rail into raw, wild and remote areas of the West with her husband, Robert A. “Pard” Strahorn who was a publicist for the new Union Pacific Railroad.  He had also written a guide book extolling the virtues of the Wyoming and Dakota territories. They married in 1877.  At the bride’s request, the word “obey” was left out of the wedding ceremony; they were going to Wyoming, where there was Women’s Suffrage. Railroad officials at first balked when Strahorn asked that his wife be allowed to accompany him on all his journeys, arguing that it was not a life suitable for a young lady. When he refused to take the job under any other condition, the railroad gave in.

 The first year alone they traveled over 6,000 miles with Adell assisting “Pard” in the writing of his informative travel guides. Together they established seven towns including Caldwell, Weiser, Payette, Shoshone, and Hailey Idaho as well as Ontario Oregon.  They often referred to these towns as  “our children of which we are justly proud.”

Adell was the first white woman to make a complete tour of Yellowstone Park and she described its breathtaking scenery.  In 1911 she published the popular Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage which was a witty and observant memoir that was illustrated by famed Western artist Charles M. Russell.  

“The multitude of friends thought it no less than a calamity in 1877 that a girl should choose as a life partner one who would carry her out into that mysterious and unsettled country,” Adell Strahorn wrote in the preface to her book.

Anne Hennis

Anne Hennis was born in Liverpool England sometime in 1742. She was formally educated and knew how to read and write.  By the time she was 18 both of her parents had died and she struggled to survive.  She sailed to America in 1761 probably as an indentured servant. She lived with relatives in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.  In 1765 she married Richard Trotter an experienced soldier and frontiersman. They had one son, William.

Richard was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 19l 1774.  When Anne learned of her husband’s death she left her young son with neighbors, and set out to avenge the loss of her husband.  She became known as “Mad Anne”. She was a strange site wearing buckskin leggings, petticoats, heavy leather boots, a man’s coat and hat, a hunting knife in a belt around her waist and a rifle slung over her shoulder.  She rode from one recruiting station to another, appealing to all she met to volunteer their services to the militia in order to keep women and children safe and fight for freedom from Indians and later, the British. 

Although Anne primarily rode up and down the western frontier, she also recruited for the Continental Army, and delivered messages between various Army detachments during the Revolutionary War. She often traveled as a courier on horseback between Forts Savannah and Randolph, a distance of almost 160 miles. She was well known and respected by the settlers along the route. 

On her rides Bailey often came across a group of Shawnee Indians. In one such encounter, Bailey was being chased by them and about to be caught when she jumped off her horse and hid in a log. Though they looked everywhere for her and even stopped to rest on the log, they could not find her. They gave up and stole her horse. After they left, Bailey came out of the log and during the night crept into their camp and retrieved her horse. 

After several years living on her own, Anne met John Bailey, a member of a legendary group of frontier scouts called the Rangers, who were defending the Roanoke and Catawba settlements from Indian attacks. He seemed to enjoy Mad Anne's rough ways, and they were married November 3, 1785. 

In 1791, Anne Bailey singlehandedly saved Fort Lee (now Charleston, West Virginia) from certain destruction by hostile Indians with a three-day, 200–mile round trip to replenish their supply of gunpowder. After hours of riding, she reached Fort Savannah at Lewisburg. There, gunpowder was quickly packed aboard her horse and one additional mount, before she reversed her direction and galloped back to Fort Lee.

With Anne's return, the siege was lifted, the attackers repulsed. For her bravery Anne was given the horse that had carried her away and brought her safely back. The animal was said to have been a beautiful black, sporting white feet and a blazed face. She dubbed him Liverpool, in honor of her birthplace. Anne Bailey was forty-nine years old when she made this famous ride. 

Again a widow, and in her late fifties, Anne went to live with her son but her love for riding and of the wilderness had not ceased. For many years afterwards she could be seen riding from Point Pleasant to Lewisburg and Staunton, carrying mail and as an express messenger.

Grace Abbott

Grace Abbott was born on November 17, 1878 in Grand Island, Nebraska, into a family of activists. Her father was a leader in state politics, the first Lt. Governor of the State of Nebraska and her mother took part in the Underground Railroad and the woman's suffrage movement.  It is not surprising that Grace became an activist and social reformer herself. 

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy fin 1898 and her master’s degree  in Political Science in 1909.  She lived in Chicago from 1908 to 1917 at Hull House and began her career as a social worker.  She became immersed in immigrant rights, especially those from eastern Europe, and advancing child welfare, particularly  the regulation of child labor.  In 1917 she was invited to join the staff or the Federal Children’s Bureau where she served as the head of the Child Labor Division.  When the Supreme Court declared the child labor law unconstitutional, Grace resigned from her position but spent the rest of er life lobbying for a Constitutional amendment prohibiting child labor.

The next four years  were spent working with the Illinois State Immigrants’ Commission and the Immigrants’ Protective League.  She then returned to Washington D.C. where she began administering the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921 which assisted states in combating infant and maternal disease and mortality.  She directed the opening of more than 1,000 prenatal and pediatric care centers. It was the merging of state and federal governments in the creation of these centers that ultimately laid the foundation for todays welfare programs. 

She was the first woman to be nominated for a Presidential cabinet position, but was not confirmed. Grace never married. In her later years she became a professor of public welfare at the University of Chicago.

Belva Lockwood

Belva Ann Bennett McNail Lockwood was born on October 24, 1830 in Royalton, NewYork. She attended local country schools and at the age of fifteen began teaching to help support the family.  At age eighteen she married Uriah H. McNail who died after only five years of marriage leaving Belva with a young daughter to support. 

She returned to teaching while pursuing her own studies and earning a B.S. with honors from Genesee College in 1857. Belva assumed the position of preceptress of the Lockport Union School in Lockport, New York where she introduced many innovations including nature walks, public speaking, gymnastics and ice skating. 

In 1866 Belva moved to Washington where she opened her own school, the first private coeducational school in the city.  At age thirty seven she married Ezekiel Lockwood, a sixty four year old dentist. He supported her in running the school until because of his poor health they closed it in 1877.  At the same time, beginning in 1871 Belva had begun preparing for a career in law. She was denied admission to several universities because of her sex, but was finally accepted at the newly established National University Law School.  She actually graduated in 1873 but only received her diploma after petitioning President Grant, the school’s ex-officio president. In 1876 she was denied permission to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme court due to “established custom”. Belva lobbied Congress and saw the passage of a bill in 1879 allowing female lawyers to pursue legal matters the rough the highest courts in the country.  On Marcy 5th , 1879, she was the first woman to appear before the United States Supreme Court. 

As an early feminist, she was instrumental in pushing through legislation in 1872 that guaranteed female government employees equal pay for equal work.  In the 1880’s believing that women had made great progress in eliminating the restrictions that inhibited them she turned to the peace movement.  She ran for president of the United States in 1884, nominated by the National Equal Rights Party, and received 4,149 votes. 

Belva spent her later years practicing law in Washington D.C. and in 1906 she argued a case in Supreme Court on behalf of the Eastern Cherokee Indians which resulted in a $5 million settlement. 

Maude Elizabeth Charlesworth

Maude Elizabeth Charlesworth was born on September 13, 1865, in Limpsfield, Surrey, England and grew up in London. She was the youngest daughter of Maria and Samuel Charlesworth.  From an early age she had an intense interest in social welfare and service. 

At 18 years of age she gave up her middle-class lifestyle in order to serve in The Salvation Army and minister to the poor in London's slum neighborhoods. She actually became a “slum sister” actually living in slums while trying to reform them.

At 21, Maud married Ballington Booth the second son of William Booth, the founder of The Salvation Army. When the New York office of The Salvation Army was in need of fresh organizational and fund-raising skills, William Booth assigned this important post to the newlyweds. On April 18th, 1887, they arrived in New York. For eight years the young couple worked tirelessly to improve the finances and expand the services of The Salvation Army in the U.S.

In 1894, a family disagreement erupted.  General Booth ordered Ballington and Maud to return to England. They chose not to leave but did withdraw from the Salvation Army. March 8, 1896, they drew up a constitution for a new organization, the Volunteers of America. Thanks to a suggestion by Maud, the constitution included an article recognizing the equality of men and women in the volunteers of America. In six months the Volunteers established 140 posts with 400 commanding officers, 50 staff officers, 3 regiments, and 10 battalions.

Throughout her career, Maud acted as a catalyst for the betterment of the nation's prison system. She became a pioneer in the prison reform movement and was nicknamed the "Little Mother" of the prisoners because of her deep commitment to caring for and providing rights to prisoners. The group worked to train prisoners and to prepare them for civilian life.  Hope Houses were established; these were the first half way houses, a concept Maude developed. Sixty to seventy-five percent of the VPL prisoners made a successful transition to civilian life.

For 65 years Maud Ballington Booth was a tireless and courageous advocate for the poor, the abandoned, the elderly, the abused, prisoners and their families. She provided emergency assistance, social services, educational opportunities and leadership in helping individuals and families. 

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was a writer, teacher, and activist who championed education for African Americans and women. Born into bondage on August 10, 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina, she was the daughter of an enslaved woman, Hannah Stanley, and her owner, George Washington Haywood.  Her formal education began in 1967 at St. Augustine’s Normal school and Collegiate Institute for former slaves.  She received the equivalent of a high school education.

In 1887 she married George A.G. Cooper, a theology professor at St. Augustines. Her husband died two years later and Anna decided to pursue a college degree at Oberlin College in Ohio, where she earned a BA in 1884 and a Masters in Mathematics in 1887. She began teaching math and science at the Washington D.C. Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, where she served as principal from 1901 to 1906.

Cooper published her first book, A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South, in 1892. In addition to calling for equal education for women, A Voice from the South advanced Cooper’s assertion that educated African American women were necessary for uplifting the entire black race. The book of essays gained national attention, and Cooper began lecturing across the country on topics such as education, civil rights, and the status of black women.

  

In 1914 she began her doctoral studies at Columbia University where she completed her coursework in three years but was unable to complete the residency requirement because her nephew’s wife died suddenly leaving him with five young children.  Anna returned to Washington and purchased a large house where she raised all five of the orphans.  She was still determined to obtain her degree and studied during summers and had her credits transferred to the Sorbonne in Paris.  In 1925 at the age of sixty six, she presented her dissertation and received her Ph.D. the fourth black woman to do so. 

On her 100th birthday, Anna received a congratulatory letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Mary Ann Ball Bickerdyke

Mary Ann Ball Bickerdyke

Born in Knox County, Ohio on  July 19,1817. Her mother died when she was only 18 months old and this resulted in her being shuttled between relatives for most of her young life and because of this she received only the most basic education.  She did attend Oberlin College where she studied nursing. 

In  April 1847 she married Robert Bickerdyke, a widower with three children. They had two sons of their own.  Robert died suddenly in 1860 leaving Mary Ann to support the family.  She began to practice “botanic” medicine which she had studied in Cincinnati before she was married. It was during a church service in 1861 that she heard about the neglect of the Illinois volunteers who had become sick with typhoid and dysentery at a Union Army camp in nearby Cairo.  She organized a relief fund and took it to the camp for disbursement. When she arrived there she horrified to find it was even more squalid than had been described.  It was filthy, crowded, unsanitary, and there was barely any food.  Without waiting for permission from anyone she began cleaning, feeding and nursing the sick men thus beginning her four year career helping the Civil War’s sick and wounded both at the front lines and behind. 

In 1862 she made five trips to the battlefield at Fort Donelson to evacuate the injured to various hospitals It was this experience that convinced her that she was most needed at the front.  She began to follow General Grant’s army as it moved up the Tennessee River toward the Confederate stronghold in Mississippi. During the battles she frequently risked her own life and safety to search for and rescue wounded soldiers. As she worked in field hospitals, tents hidden in the woods, she washed clothes, prepared food, distributed supplies and nursed the wounded. 

She was known and loved by the men as “Mother Bickerdyke” 

She accompanied General Grant to Vicksburg and Sherman to Chattanooga and was the only woman present at the battles of Shiloh, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge where she labored in freezing rain and deep mud to care for the 1,700 wounded Union soldiers. 

Mary Ann was in Beaufort, NC when the war ended. and she followed Sherman’s army into Washington DC where she was given a place of honor in the Victory parade on May 24th 1865. In the years after the war she settled in Salinas KS where she opened a hotel and continued to assist veterans. 

Ruth Benedict

Ruth Benedict

Ruth was born in New York City on June 5th, 1887. Her father died when she was only 21 months old and she grew up with a morbid fascination with death and had long periods of depression as she grep older. She excelled in school and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College in 1909.

In 1914 Ruth married a bio chemistry professor from Cornell Medical School, Stanley Benedict. Ruth occupied herself with social work and writing a book but by Christmas of 1916 she had come to the realization that she would never achieve personal happiness or fulfillment just being a wife.  For the next four years she saw her husband only on weekends and from 1930 on they ceased meeting all together.  Neither remarried and Stanley left her his entire estate upon his death.

In 1919 Ruth had begun taking anthropology courses at the New School for Social Research.  In 1923 she earned her doctorate from Columbia University studying under Franz Boas.  From 1922 to 1931 she made many field trips to the West and Southwest in order to study various indian cultures. This resulted in two books of folktales and mythology of various tribes. 

In 1924 Ruth published what is still considered the definitive introduction to anthropology, Patterns of Culture, establishing her as one of the leading female anthropologists of her day. 

From 1943 to 1945 she was special advisor to the Office of War Information on issues of peoples of occupied territories and enemy lands.  Her long standing interest in Japanese culture bore fruit in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword published in 1946.  She returned to Columbia in 1946 to teach and in 1947 was president of the American Anthropological Association.  By this time she was being acclaimed as the most outstanding U.S. Anthropologist. In 1948 she achieved full professorship at Columbia.  

Mabel Therese Bonney

 Mabel Therese Bonney

Born sometime in 1894 in Syracuse New York, Therese grew up there and in California. She graduated from the University of California. She earned a master’s degree in Romance languages from Harvard. She studied at Columbia for a while but earned her doctorate  of letters at the Sorbonne in Paris. 

In 1919 she settled in Paris with a goal of pursuing photography and promoting cultural exchanges between France and the United States.  She founded the European branch of the American Red Cross Correspondence Exchange. Later she established the Bonney Service, an illustrated press service  supplying feature stories to the press of 33 countries. 

Her photographic career included highly acclaimed works on antiques, guidebooks, and a large accumulation of photographs that were widely exhibited at various gallery shows throughout the world. In 1934 she was awarded the Legion of Honor for her work on the centenary observation of the death of the Marquis de Lafayette. Bonney was also a sought after model.  She was "acclaimed as the most perfect da Vinci model in the world."  (Syracuse Herald)  She modeled for artists in France and Spain. 1935 she moved to New York and became the director of the new Maison Francaise, a gallery in Rockefeller Center. Her photos were featured in Life magazine.  In 1939 she traveled to Finland to photograph the preparations for the 1940 Olympic games but found herself the only photojournalist at the scene of the Russian invasion in November.

The outbreak of World War II appalled Bonney. War’s mindless uprooting of innocent civilians provided the principal subject for this photographer/photojournalist. She was also involved in many relief efforts. Bonney’s images of homeless children and adults on the backroads of Europe touched millions of viewers in the United States and abroad. Of her "truth raids" into the countryside to document the horror of war, Bonney said: "I go forth alone, try to get the truth and then bring it back and try to make others face it and do something about it.”

She traveled extensively and in her 80’s returned to the Sorbonne to study for a second doctorate in gerontology. She was the recipient of innumerable awards and had her portrait painted by many including six times by Georges Rouault and three times by Raoul Dufy. 

Laura Gilpin

Laura Gilpin was born on April 22, 1891, Colorado Springs, CO daughter of Emma and Frank Gilpin. Frank was a cattle rancher fromPhiladelphia, while Emma grew up in St. Louis and Chicago.  Emma did move to Colorado to be with her husband but longed for the more cultured surroundings and lifestyle of big cities.  

Laura enjoyed exploring and being outdoors as a child in the Colorado landscape.   For her fifth birthday she received a Brownie Camera and for Christmas, that same year, a developing tank.  This was the beginning of a life long love affair with the camera.  

At one point in an attempt to support her growing interest in photography, Gilpin started a business raising turkeys at her family's ranch. Her poultry business was widely successful and was featured in a Denver newspaper in 1913.  Her passion remained photography though.

In 1916 she moved to New York where she met Gertrude Kasebier. Gertrude became her mentor and life long friend. While there she became quite ill with influenza.  She was so sick she had to return home to regain her health.  Her mother hired a nurse, Betsy Foster, to help care for her and this was the beginning of a life long friendship; one of dedication, devotion and sharing.  Laura regained her health and Betsy returned to her visiting nurse duties in the far reaches of Arizona. Laura accompanied her often and it was through these visits they both became totally obsessed with the Navajo.  She photographed and wrote the story of these people. She respected and had a great love and understanding of the Navajo.  They returned that respect. Of these great people she said that two qualities really stood out, dignity and happiness. Both sprung from their vital traditional faith, faith in nature and faith in themselves she said. 

There is so much more to be said, known and seen of Laura Gilpin.  Martha A. Sandweiss has written a book about her life including photographs; Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace. 

Midge Kirk is a slightly eccentric artist, writer, bibliophile, educator, feminist scholar and historian.  She can be reached at eurydice4@yahoo.com and she has a blog, wildheartwomen@blogspot.com. HerStory focuses on stories of women whose contributions to history need to be remembered. 

Franc Johnson Newcomb

Franc Johnson Newcomb was born March 30, 1887 in Tunnel City, Wisconsin.  Her father died when she was two and her mother when she was twelve, and she was then raised on her grandmother’s farm. 

In 1912 she accepted a teaching position at the Navajo Reservation at Fort Defiance, Arizona earning $25 a month and living and taking meals with the students in a dormitory.  The students taught her Navajo and it was then she because a successful teacher. 

In 1914, at the end of the school year, Franc married Arthur Newcomb (AJ) who was a clerk at the Fort Defiance Trading Post. She assumed the typical role of a hard-working trader’s wife, and by the summer of 1915, their many invited, as well as uninvited visitors, created a need for additional rooms beyond their original quarters. Her responsibilities increased as she provided food and facilities for travelers, whether on horseback or in chauffeured touring cars. Over time, prominent guests such as European royalty and government officials visited the post. One such couple was Mr. and Mrs. King C. Gillette of the Gillette Razor Company who, with a group of friends en route to Mesa Verde National Park, dropped in between 1919-1920. When they saw the “Whirling Log” rug that Navajo leader Hosteen Klah was weaving, they immediately wished to purchase it. A.J. convinced them to wait several months so it could be displayed in the upcoming Navajo Ceremonial in Gallup. Mrs. Gillette was so pleased with the rug that she ordered two more.  At another time, Newcomb received an unexpected visit from the Swedish Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf and Crown Princess Louisa in 1926. Franc was notified on morning by a reporter that the prince and his retinue of twenty would be at the post in two hours for lunch. Indicative of her ability to handle a difficult situation, she prepared a fine meal on short notice served on her best tableware.  On yet another occasion, in response to a government request from officials in Washington, D.C., the Newcombs provided escort services to a Navajo ceremony, as well as sleeping accommodations for a British Lord and Lady. Busy working at the post and providing for the needs of guests, the energetic Newcomb gave birth to daughter Lynette in 1918, followed by Priscilla in 1923. 

Franc and Hosteen Klah, a Navajo Medicine Man, became fast friends and he invited her to attend his healing ceremonies. At the completion of each ceremony Franc would paint sand paintings that she had committed to memory in an attempt to describe the symbols and their meanings, thus becoming the first white person to record Navajo symbolism.

During the flue epidemic of 1920 when one tenth of the Navajo population died, Franc used her knowledge of the Navajo religion and healing ceremonies and became an honored and respected medicine woman. She was inducted into he tribe, the first white woman to have such an honor bestowed upon her and given the name Atsay Ashon. 

Franc wrote numerous books about the Navajo.  She and her friend, Mary Wheelwright established the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in Santa Fe.  She donated all of her watercolor re-creations of sand paintings, almost 1,000, plus her potter and basket collection to the Museum. 

Following Arthur’s death in 1946 she lectured widely on Navajo religion, history and rites, writing poetry and books on the Navajo as well.  Her final book, Navajo Bird Tales was published in August of 1970. 

Marguerite Milton Wells

Marguerite Milton Wells

 …there must be a nucleus of people in each community who would carry a continuing responsibility for government and would give an intelligent and disinterested political leadership on issues as they arose. —

It is a political climate of late and I am always grateful to the League of Women Voters for their tireless and critical efforts to keep us informed, aware and exercising our hard won privilege to vote!  A big shout out to you all today and this woman feels like just the right one to spotlight this month. 

Marguerite Milton Wells was born on February 10, 1872 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  At a very young age her family moved to the remotest corner of the Dakota Territories.  It was here she grew and witnessed firsthand the creation of new towns and eventually a new state. She saw many strangers come together to create laws for this new state and their work for the community left a lasting impression on her and was the foundation for her fervent belief in democracy. 

In 1895 Marguerite graduated from Smith College and began teaching, volunteering and serving on many boards of charitable organizations.  With no explicable reason, one day in 1917 she simply resigned from every office she held and presented herself at the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association to serve wherever needed and in whatever capacity. 

She participated in the final battle for suffrage when Minnesota finally ratified the Nineteenth Amendment.  While attending the National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention in St. Louis in 1919, Marguerite heard the presiding president, Carrie Chapman Catt, call for a new league to be formed to educate voters, particularly new ones. The result was the creation of the National League of Women Voters in 1920. Wells was the organizing force behind the formation of the league and took up its mission with gusto and directed its course over the next 25 years.  

Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, in 1892. Her mother was African American. Her father was part African American and part American Indian. Her family was poor. Bessie had to walk almost four miles to go to school. When she was nine years old, her father left the family. 

Bessie had to pick cotton and wash clothes to help earn money for her family and save small amounts for her education. Bessie was proud of her race, something she learned from her hard-working and religious mother.

She managed to save enough money to attend one year of college in Oklahoma. The money ran out and she had to leave after only one year, but in that year she learned about flying.  She read about the Wright brothers and the first American female pilot, Harriet Quimby.  She thought more and more about flying.  At the age of 23, living in Chicago with her older brothers, she heard stories from pilots returning from WWI. She decided she was going to be a pilot and worked several jobs to save money to learn how.  It was a herculean task as a woman and a woman of color. Finding that there were no opportunities for her in the United States she decided to head to Europe.  She studied French at a language school in Chicago. She also took a higher paying job supervising a restaurant in order to save more.  Soon after the war ended Bessie went to France and attended the famous flight school, Ecole d’Aviation des Ferres Caudron in northern France, where she completed seven months of flight training and earned her international permit to fly in 1921. She was the first black woman to ever earn an international pilot’s license.

She returned to Chicago as the only black female pilot in the United States. Bessie soon learned that it was nearly impossible to earn enough money to live.  In 1922 she returned to Europe to complete four more months of training, learning impressive tricks, with French and German pilots.

Coleman returned to New York where she gave her first public flying performance in the U.S. Before a large gathering she rolled her plane among other breathtaking feats such as stalling the plane and starting again just before it landed.  The crowd went wild. She became famous and performed across the county.  She was a huge success but Bessie wanted more.

She knew she needed a plane of her own and she wanted to establish a school for black pilots in the U.S.so Bessie traveled to Los Angeles where she enlisted the support of a company that sold tires.  They helped her purchase a Curtiss JN-Four airplane, commonly called a Jenny. In return she was to promote the company in public events.  An air show was organized in Los Angeles but the Jenny’s engine stalled soon after takeoff and crashed.  Coleman suffered a broken leg and other injuries. She was made of tough stuff though and sent a message to her public…”Tell them all that as soon as I can walk I’m going to fly!”

In 1925 she traveled to her home state of Texas where she gave speeches and showed films of her flights.  Soon she had enough money to pay for another Jenny and continued her speeches, organized more air shows in Texas, Georgia and Florida hoping to earn enough money to open her school.

On April 13, 1926 during a flight the controls of the Jenny stuck and with no safety devices in place, such as a safety belt or parachute, she plummeted to her to her death as the plane rolled.

Her powerful influence continues today.  “Because of Bessie Coleman, we have overcome that which was much worse than racial barriers.  We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream.”  Lt. William Powell.

In 1992 Chicago City Council passed a resolution praising her.  It said: “Bessie Coleman continues to inspire untold thousands, even millions of young persons with her sense of adventure, her positive attitude and her determination to succeed…”

Sarah Breedlove Walker

Sarah Breedlove Walker was born on December 23, 1867 in Louisiana, the daughter of Owen and Minerva  Breedlove,  recently freed slaves.  Sarah, who was their fifth child, was the first in her family to be born free.  She became an orphan at the age of seven and went to live with her sister in Mississippi.  Presumably she picked cotton and did household work to earn her keep. 

At age 14, to escape both her oppressive working environment and frequent mistreatment by her brother in law, she married Moses McWilliams.  In 1885 she gave birth to a beautiful daughter, A’Lelia. Two years later Moses was murdered by a white lynch mob and Sara and her daughter moved to St.Louis.  She found work as a washerwoman earning $1.50 a day, which was enough to send A’Lelia to public school.  Sara herself attended night school when she could. While in St. Louis Sarah met her second husband, Charles J. Walker, who was in advertising and later assisted her in promoting her business.

In 1905 she had dream that revealed to her a formula of pomade to straighten Negro hair. The idea was first conceived in Cherry Creek, a prosperous mining town in Denver CO.  Sarah traveled from Pueblo, to Trinidad, to Colorado Springs and back to Denver selling her product. She mixed the ingredients herself in washtubs and sold it door to door.  She was very successful and “The Walker Method” and “Madam C.J Walker”were born.  She built a factory, recruited sales agents who dressed in starched white shirts and long black skirts taking the Walker products to homes all over the U.S. and the Caribbean. 

Sarah organized her 3,000 employees into social and philanthropic clubs, held national conventions that were attended by delegates from these clubs.  She rewarded her employees for high sales and those who did the most charity work.

By 1910 Sarah was a millionaire and one of the best known black women in America.  She made large donations to Black and Christian charities and endowed scholarships for women at Tuskegee Institute, She founded philanthropies that included educational scholarships and donations to homes for the elderly, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the National Conference on Lynching, among other organizations focused on improving the lives of African-Americans. She also donated the largest amount of money by an African-American toward the construction of an Indianapolis YMCA in 1913.

 

Sara Josephine Baker..."Doctor Jo"

When I hear the name Josephine Baker I think of the beautiful and exotic actress, singer and dancer. You probably do too.  But there is another Josephine Baker that few people know about.  Sara Josephine Baker was born November 15, 1873 in Poughkeepsie New York into a wealthy Quaker family She had fond memories of a happy childhood and a good and supportive relationship with both of her parents.  Her Father Daniel Mosher Baker was a lawyer.  Her mother Jenny Harwood Brown was one of the first women to graduate from Vassar College. Sara was raised with the expectation that she would also attend college but her plans changed when her father and brother died suddenly. Newly responsible for the family’s finances, she gave up her scholarship and applied to medical school instead. In 1894, Baker enrolled at the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary, originally founded by pioneering physician Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell. While associating with the first generation of women to attend medical school, Baker was introduced to some powerful female role models, including faculty member Mary Putnam Jacobi. After graduating in 1898, second in her class of eighteen, Baker negotiated a year’s intern-ship at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, where she worked at an outpatient clinic serving some of the city’s poorest residents. She developed a keen interest in the connection between poverty and ill health, which led her to a commitment to social medicine that would shape the rest of her career.

 Later she opened a private practice. After earning only $185 in her first year, she became an inspector for the N.Y. City Health Department. Although she maintained her private practice she became involved in public health work with a special concern for lowering infant mortality rate. 

In New York City, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the infant mortality rate was very high. Often there were 1,500 deaths per week during the heat of summer.  In 1908 she tackled this problem with a team of thirty nurses.  They went door to door, advising mothers on breastfeeding, cleanliness and good ventilation.  The mortality rate dropped considerably, which resulted in the establishment of a Bureau of Child Hygiene with Dr. Jo, as her patients had begun calling her, as director.

Dr. Jo was a pioneer in preventive medicine and public health education.  She lectured throughout the United States on child hygiene and published five popular books on the subject in addition to more than 250 magazine articles.  Josephine Baker became the first woman to be a professional representative to the League of Nations representing the U.S. in the Health Committee. In her lifetime and largely because of her efforts, Dr. Baker saw the infant mortality rate in New York City from 111 to 66 per 1,000 births.