04-20-1995 Episode 265 Women of Achievement and Herstory

      E. 04-13-1796, a female Indian elephant (with the small ears)
arrives in New York harbor, the first elephant to appear on the North
American continent.  Bought in India and shipped to the American
colonies, she toured the east coast from South Carolina to upstate New
York and was a sensational money-maker in what was the forerunner of
a circus.  In 1805 (estimated), a second elephant, also a female but from
Africa (big ears) and named Old Bet, was exhibited as she walked the
56 miles from Sing Sing to Sommers, New York after she was shipped
to the U.S.  Old Bet was murdered in 1816, by a party or parties
unknown, the year of no summer which followed the eruption of
Tambora.  A minister wrote "the poor elephant was destroyed because
he (sic) took money from those who could not afford to spend it."  She
was probably murdered because she ate so much hay, etc., when a food
shortage loomed because of failed crops.  Her monument stands in front
of the owner's inn in Sommers, NY.  

04-20 Anniversaries ...............................................

      B. 04-20-1869, Mary Agnes Chase, botanist, woman suffragist,
important contributor to systematic botany, primarily self-taught and
tutored in close association with several scientists but her only degree
was an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Illinois. She became the
primary authorities in the world on grasses. She was active with the
radical feminist wing of suffrage and was arrested and forcibly fed.  

      B. 02-10-1883, Edith Clarke, pioneer electrical engineer. 

      B. 04-20-1949, Jessica Lange won 1995 Academy Award for best
actor for her work in _Blue Skies_ , for supporting actor  for her role
in _Tootsie_ (1982) and nominated for her work in _Frances_ (1982).

      E. 04-20-1988, Helen Thayer, New Zealand-born American reaches
the North Pole, on foot and skis, pulling a sled attached to her belt
which held her tent and all food. Her sole companion was a husky used
for warning her when polar bears were approaching. Temperatures in
storms dropped to minus 100. The 345-mile, 27-day journey was the
first time a woman had reached the North Pole alone. Thayer, a
mountain climber and U.S. luge champion in 1975, was 50 years old at
the time.  In 1990 she served as the leader of the first International
U.S./Soviet Arctic Women's expedition.

Quotes du jour ...............................................

      "It seems strange that the Mother of the race should be made the
Slave of the Fruits of her Womb. It appears peculiar that she should
have no privileges except those received through her son. It seems
illogical that the God Principle of the Universe, in its infinite wisdom,
should endanger the existence of the Race by making the Mother of it
the weak, cringing underling of her husband."   
             -- Hilton Hotema         


(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.