May 20, 1995 - Episode 295 - Women of Achievement and Herstory

       B. May 20, 1825, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, although a
graduate in theology from Oberlin College in 1850, she was refused
ordination until she was finally accepted by the Congregational
Church in South Butler, New York, (1852-54) to become the first
woman minster in U. S. history. 
       An outspoken advocate of abolition, temperance, and women's
rights, it was her protesting of being barred from speaking at the
temperance convention of 1853 that gained her international fame. Not
inconsequentially, it was during a previous temperance convention in
London, England, that Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met
when they were excluded from participating in that august body's
proceedings (women had to sit behind screens and not speak) and
the two women went on to organize the Seneca Falls Women's Rights
Convention of 1848, the first women's rights convention in the
history of western civilization.
       Antoinette Brown married into the renowned Blackwell family
(Elizabeth and Emily were the first two women physicians in the U.S.)
and had six children, but she continued her temperance and women's
rights activities to become one of the most sought after speakers in
the nation.  She published her last book in 1915 _The Social Side of
Mind and Action_ when she was 90 and lived to 96.

May 20, 20 Anniversaries ...............................................

       B. May 20, 1768, Dolley Paine Madison, strong-willed wife of US
President James and noted political hostess and maneuverer.

       B. May 20, 1851, Mother Alphonsa Lathrop (Rose Hawthorne),
American author, Dominican nun, founder of a Roman Catholic
Congregation of St. Rose of Lima that cares for victims of terminal
cancer. Youngest daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, she had a
successful writing career and a husband before converting to
Catholicism. She separated from her husband to become a nun.

       B. May 20, 1882, Sigrid Undset, Norwegian novelist.  Winner of
1928 Nobel prize in literature. Her most famous works are the Kristan
Lavransdatter trilogy.

       B. May 20, 1894, Adela Roger St.Johns, journalist, author. 
"This country got into trouble when women came down to equality
with men." An outspoken journalist who covered Presidents and crime
figures such as Al Capone, she became a reporter for the Los
Angeles _Herald_ at age eighteen.  Was renowned for her reportage
of the Lindburgh baby kidnapping.

       B. May 20, 1901, Doris Fleeson, journalist, columnist syndicated
in more than 100 papers. Admired for her remarkably balanced
reportage,  she still skewered politicians who failed the people or
were corrupt.  She was a militant feminist in the 1940s and 1950s
when one of the biggest battles women faced in Congress was to get
sufficient women's washrooms in the Capitol building, a complaint that
dated back to the 19th century from women visitors. DF was noted
for her aid to young women reporters.  She scolded Presidents
Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson for their failures on
behalf of the people.

       B. May 20, 1915, Shelley Smith Mydans, author.  Was imprisoned
for 21 months by Japanese at Santo Tomas in Manilla 1942-1943. Wrote
_Open City_.


>>>(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. <<<