June 05/06, 1995 - Episodes 311 and 312 - Women of Achievement and Herstory

      Born 06-05-1836, Miriam Florence Folline Leslie, after the near
bankruptcy and death of her husband Frank, she rebuilt the Leslie
publishing empire.  In 1882, she changed her name officially to
*Frank Leslie* and at her death in 1914 willed $2 million *personally*
to Carrie Chapman Catt to get women's suffrage into the U.S.
Constitution.
      A bitter challenge of the will from MR. Leslie's side of the
family ignored the fact that MRS. Frank Leslie had rebuilt the
fortune and that MR. Leslie had died almost broke.  
      It cost more than a million dollars to fight the family challenge
and left women's suffrage with less than $1 million of Mrs. Frank
Leslie's bequest. CCC used the money to set up various publicity and
information bureaus named after Leslie and newspapers, magazines,
and leaflets went out to millions of people swaying them to support
women's suffrage.  Almost none of the money went to salaries.
      After MR. Frank died in 1880 almost broke, Miriam who had
personally edited several of the publications took over the
management of the floundering publishing empire and gained the title
of the "Joan of Arc of American publishing," and the "empress of
publishing."
      The Leslie publishing empire consisted, of _Frank Leslie's
Popular Monthly-, the _Illustrated Newspaper, _Frank Leslie's Lady's
Journal, and Frank Leslie's _Chimney Corner_.  They were the most
successful and popular publications of their time and supported the
Leslies luxuriously.  MFFL became a legendary party hostess.
      MFFL's life was as picturesque as any fiction.  She started off
on the stage in an act as the sister of the legendary Lola Montez. 
She married a Leslie publications editor and before her divorce
shared her life and her husband's home with publisher Frank Leslie. 
They eventually married and after Leslie's death, she was married for
a short time to the brother of Oscar Wilde.
06-05 Anniversaries ...............................................

      Event June 5, 1832, Kaahumanu, Hawaii's first feminist died. She
co-ruled the islands with her husband Kamehameha II, and then as
regent for her son Kamehameha III.  She worked with her husband to
unite all the islands and then broke down many of the native
religious barriers against women.  For example, she convinced her
husband to eat with women in public.  She began a system of laws
that her son developed into a constitutional government and
supported his requirement of literacy for all Hawaiian citizens.  She
encouraged the Protestant missionary movement in the islands and
personally converted to Christianity.

      B. June 5, 1884, Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett*, British novelist
who developed a distinct form of novel set almost entirely in
dialogue.  "Men and Wives."

      B. June 5, 1887, Ruth Fulton Benedict*, American anthropologist
whose writings helped determine the US postwar policy towards
Japan. In spite of her world-renowned fame in the field of
anthropology dating from 1924, she was not made a full professor at
Columbia University until 1948, a few months before her death.  Even
her presidency of the American Anthropological Association predates
her full professorship. Was considered the outstanding anthropologist
of her day.

06-06 Anniversaries ...............................................

      B. June 6, 1872, Alexandra Fyodorovna, Empress consort of the
last Czar of Russia, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England. As
is usual, even though history says she was only a wife and was not
in line for the throne, in that quaint way of men, she (guilty only of
being a wife) was killed along with her husband.

      B. June 6, 1877, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, sculptor, after
success in Paris, she found race and sex prejudice on her return to
the U.S. In 1913 she began using Afro-Americans as models and for
the next 50 years she produced major pieces that are part of the
permanent collections at a number of museums and universities.

      Event June 6, 1889: Bryn Mawr College awarded the first
graduate fellowship in the history of the United States to a woman,
Emily Greene Balch for "prosecuting sociological studies."  EGB went
on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946.  

      B. June 6, 1898, Ninette DeValois, choreographer and director,
organized a ballet school and dance group that "is recognized as the
first nationally sponsored, officially recognized, financially secure,
ideally constituted dance organization in the English-speaking world,"
according to the _New York Times_.  The ballet company she
organized?  The Sadler Wells Ballet of England, now the Royal Ballet.

      .................................................

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.

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 >>(C) 1995 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR
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