May 11, 1995 - Episode 286 - Women of Achievement and Herstory

      Academics rate the wives of U.S. Presidents in the following
order according to a recent survey: 1. Eleanor Roosevelt; 2. Hillary
Rodham Clinton; 3. Abigail Adams; 4. Dolley Madison; 5.      Rosalyn
Carter; 6. Lady Bird Johnson; 7. Jackie Kennedy; 8. Barbara Bush; 9.
Betty Ford; 10. Edith Wilson. 
      Personally, I would have listed Edith Wilson much higher since
she acted as President of the United States during her husband's
illness and kept things together so well the U.S. Senate's was
stymied in its attempts to find out the truth about Wilson's disability
... or as some say, "They saw that the affairs of state were going
along so smoothly that they didn't want to disturb things."

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      Now why aren't I surprised?  Women only receive 30% of
scholarship funds, 17 % of recruiting money, and 23% of the
operating budgets in colleges where women are more than one-half
the enrollment.

May 11 Anniversaries ...............................................

      B. May 11, 1823, (Catherine) Sister Irene Fitzgibbon, headed a
home for foundling babies whose care had previously been assigned
to prisoners or poorhouses, the New York Foundling Hospital. She
established a maternity hospital, a hospital for children, a care
facility for children and a hospital for TB patients.  She started the
program to put foundling babies in foster homes as well as provide
decent care for unwed mothers both before and AFTER their children
were born.  A veritable giant of herstory.

      B. May 11, 1884, Alma Gluck, Rumanian born American opera
singer with Metropolitan for 12 years.  Her daughter is Marcia
Davenport, noted American author and her son Efram Zimbalist, Jr., a
TV actor.  Her daughter wrote of her mother, "I marvel at the self
discipline, the strong character of a young and beautiful woman who
was working terribly hard at music and yet would let herself be
encumbered by a small child and all the annoyances that go with it."

      B. May 11, 1892, Dame Margaret Rutherford, British actor,
appeared in more than 30 films and 100 plays, considered the
quintessential Miss Marple; won Academy Award for her work in
_VIP's_ (1963) .

      B. May 11, 1894(3?), Martha Graham, the woman who most
embodied the movements of modern dance. A National Treasure.

      B. May 11, 1901, Gladys Rockmore Davis, American artist with
works hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

      B. May 11, 1906, Bidu Sayao, Brazilian coloratura soprano,
debuted the Metropolitan Opera 1937, her upper-class family was
shocked when they discovered she was taking voice lessons and later
tried to stop her debut in Rome, but her success overcame
objections.

      Event May 11, 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved
two contraceptive pills for use - the first time an oral contraceptive
had been approved in the U.S. (Some question on the date, some say
May 04-1960.  My local library microfilm of newspapers doesn't go
back that far ... HELP!)

      E.  May 11, 1972, Barbara Lynn Herwig is named special
assistant in the Justice Department to recruit women as FBI special
agents, the first in U.S. history, and BLH is the first woman to hold
a top administrative post in the FBI.  In July, Susan L. Roley and
Joanne E. Pierce became the first FBI agents.

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

      "Ignorance is no excuse-it's the real thing."
            --Irene Peter 

      "Distortion begins when the religion of Maternity proclaims that
all mothers are saintly."
            -- Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

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      We thank Hari N. Chengalath and Madonna Narvaez for their
donations toward defraying of the April online expenses for the
posting of Women of Achievement and Herstory and Catt's Claws. 

(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.