When I was a young college student studying English Literature, I had a full year, two semester course called Survey of World Literature. There were NO women writers included - not one. When I asked the professor how it could be a world survey if it didn't have even one woman author, he replied "There were no women writers worth being included." I proceeded to spend the next year compiling and reading the works of women authors who were not only notable but were 'firsts' and both popular and acclaimed in their own time, then dropped and forgotten by later male critics, authors such as the still popular Jane Austen, George Snad (pen-name), the Bronte' sisters, Japanese pioneer of the novel form, Lady Murakami, and dozens of others. It was interesting to see how later critics manipulated criteria to leave out immensely influential books like Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whom Lincoln jokingly called "the little lady who started a war."
If a man had written it, it would have been lauded as a historic icon, if, perhaps, not an artistically laudatory literary work (I am not sure about this either.) The professor did not use any of my research in designing future courses, but I had taught myself a great deal by doing it.
Anyhow, young women needed examples, role models, pioneers to show them the way and to help remove such blockades as "some can't do that." The area of math was infamous for being held up as an area that women were incapable of making a career or a work of importance.
But as soon as we got the vote, and were able to get into college, we began to right the wrongs of previous historians and find our lost role models. One of them just died. Perhaps you read the book or saw the movie HIDDEN FIGURES, which dealt not only with the obstacles thrown in the way of women in math, but also the Jim Crow style blockades erected in the path of women of African American ancestry. One of the heroes of that book and movie has just died:
Katherine Johnson, whose career making vital calculations for NASA was immortalized in the 2016 book and movie "Hidden Figures," has died at 101. Johnson joined what was then called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1953 as a so-called human computer.
I am sure we will see obituary notices of her contributions in magazines and newspapers and can read more about her accomplishments and her life.
Also on the cover of Smithsonian this month there is an illustration to invite the reader to learn more about Florence Nightingale, who was not only a famous Crimean Battle nurse but according to Smithsonian's cover a "fierce reformer and pioneering statistician." I saw a movie about Florence Nightingale some years ago and I will look it up on google and see if I can get the title for you in case you, too, would like to enjoy a Women's History Film Festival on this year of celebration of the 100th anniversary of Suffrage for American Women.
I have decorated inside my house with purple lights and star shaped frames within which I have put pictures of a dozen of the most influential 'Votes for Women' activists of America and Britain: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Paul, Lucretia Mott, Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Wollstonecraft to name a few.
Happy 100th Anniversary - keep your eyes open for the many women's history articles that are sure to appear in newspapers and magazines this year in honor of this momentous occasion.
By the way, I could easily name 25 or more famous men of history in a variety of fields, off the cuff, spontaneously from a life of both learning and enjoying history featuring men, how many men or women could do the same? How many women can you name in the following fields: science, literature, art, film, environmentalism, photography, politics, journalism? Give yourself a little test and if you can't, it isn't because they don't exist, but only because you have not become aware of their contributions.
By the way, there are many historic sites you can visit in women's history here in South Jersey too - you can visit the one room school where Clara Barton taught before she went on to found the Red Cross, and you can visit the home and agricultural village site of Elizabeth White, cultivator of the blueberry and inventor of cellophane packaging for her new crop, just to name two. Also, did you know that Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter, and hero of a new movie by her name, worked in Cape May to gather funds to support her forays into the south to rescue enslaved people and guide them to freedom?
And most notably this year, visit Paulsdale in Mount Laurel, the family farm of Alice Paul where you can get a great view of the final years of the long struggle for American Women to win the right to vote in the US, and the part Alice Paul played in making that happen.
By the way, there are many historic sites you can visit in women's history here in South Jersey too - you can visit the one room school where Clara Barton taught before she went on to found the Red Cross, and you can visit the home and agricultural village site of Elizabeth White, cultivator of the blueberry and inventor of cellophane packaging for her new crop, just to name two. Also, did you know that Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter, and hero of a new movie by her name, worked in Cape May to gather funds to support her forays into the south to rescue enslaved people and guide them to freedom?
And most notably this year, visit Paulsdale in Mount Laurel, the family farm of Alice Paul where you can get a great view of the final years of the long struggle for American Women to win the right to vote in the US, and the part Alice Paul played in making that happen.
Happy Trails, fellow travelers!
Jo Ann
The movie about Florence Nightingale was called:
THE LADY WITH THE LAMP, and it came out in 1985
THE LADY WITH THE LAMP, and it came out in 1985
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