02-26-95 Women of Achievement and Herstory

      In 1944, Liberty Field, Camp Stewart, the Women of the Air Service
Pilots (WASPS) who flew military aircraft during World War II, were ordered
out on ground maneuvers with the regular male Army troops.  Although the
women were not military (without military benefits such as insurance,
housing, free meals, health care, or uniforms, etc.), they were often
ordered by misogynistic C.O.'s to perform as if they *were* military
personnel.
      Out in the field without military equipment (the women often didn't
even get shoe rations!) the men were busily showing the women up when
the officers rang an alarm. The WASPs had no idea what the alarm meant
until GI's whipped out gas masks and put them on.  Not the WASPs.  They
had no gas masks!  As the acrid smoke drifts over everyone, the women
gag and cough while the men laughed and the officers smirked.
      From Byrd Howell Granger's _On Final Approach, The Women Airforce
Service Pilots of W.W.II_. Scottsdate, AZ.: Falconer Publishing Company,
1991. ISBN: 0-9626267-0-8.

02-26 Anniversaries -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

      B. 02-26-1858, Alice Mabel Bacon, traveled in Japan where she both
studied and later taught daughters of nobility at the Peeresses' School in
Tokyo.  She authored _Japanese Girls and Women_(1891) because "while
Japan as a whole has been closely studied, and much and varied
information had been gathered about its country and people,  one-half of
its population has been left entirely unnoticed, passed over with brief
mention or altogether misunderstood."  She had formed close friendships
with many Japanese women from all classes from princesses to fisherwomen.

      B. 02-26-1921, Betty Hutton, brash actor/singer best known for her
role in  the movie _Annie Get Your Gun_ (1950).

Quotes du jour -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

      "One day after the Patriot defeats at Lexington and Concord, the
women of Groton, Massachusetts, dressed in men's clothing, armed
themselves with muskets and pitchforks, and set out to defend the local
bridge from the retreating British.  The women captured a small group of
British solders, including a courier carrying valuable intelligence and
handed their prisoners over to the local militia."
      -- A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN AMERICA by Carol Hymowitze and
Michaele Weissman.  Printed in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League
of B'nai B'rith, Bantam Books, 1978
--

      "I never expect men to GIVE us liberty.  No, women, we are not
WORTH it, until we TAKE it."
                  --Voltaraine de Cleyre (1866-1912).

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(C) 1995 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR 71902,
irenestuber@delphi.com. Distribute verbatim copies freely with copyright
notice for non-profit use. Don't let anyone tell you there weren't notable
and effective women throughout history.  They were always there, but
historians failed to note them in our histories so that each generation of
women has had to reinvent themselves.