July 14, 1995 - Episode 350 - Women of Achievement and Herstory

           This brief paragraph appeared July 14, 1848, in the obscure 
     country paper called the _Seneca County Courier_:

           "WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION-- A Convention to discuss the social,
     civil and religious condition and rights of women will be held in the
     Wesleyan Chapel at Seneca Fall, N.Y., on Wednesday and Thursday, the 
     19th and 20th of July, current, commencing at 10 O'clock A.M.  
     During the first day, the meeting will be exclusively for women, who 
     are earnestly invited to attend.  
           "The public generally are invited to be present the second day,
     when Lucretia Mott of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen, 
     will address the Convention."
           Three hundred women showed up for the first Women's Rights
     Convention ever held in the world.
           WOA will print the entire, astounding declaration of freedom 
     that came from that conference.
           As written in Doris Faber's engaging book _Petticoat Politics_, 
     on the day the 19th amendment was approved in 1920, a reporter 
     sought out Mrs. Charlotte Woodward, then past 90, the only living 
     person to remember that day in 1948 when it all started:
           "I do clearly remember the wonderful beauty of the early morning
     when we dropped all our allotted tasks and climbed into the family 
     wagon to drive over the rough roads to Seneca Falls.  At first we 
     traveled quitealone under the overhanging tree branches and wild vines, 
     but before we had gone many miles we came on other wagonloads of 
     women, bound in the same direction.  As we reached different 
     crossroads, we saw wagons  coming from every part of the country, 
     and long before we reached Seneca  Falls we were a procession ..."

     07-14 Anniversaries ...........................................

           B. July 14, 1801, Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle, talented writer 
     whose correspondence with her husband Thomas is one of the English 
     language's treasures.

           B. July 14, 1811, Clara Fisher, actor. Generally conceded to be 
     the foremost actress of her time whose adoring public named babies and 
     other possessions after her, much in the fashion of rock singer 
     popularity today.

           B. July 14, 1858, Emmeline Pankhurst, English suffrage leader 
     who with her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia, Lady Constance Lyton, 
     and Mrs. Pehnick Lawrence led the militant wing of the women's suffrage 
     movement in England, the Women's Social and Political Union.  Women 
     over 30 won the vote in 1918. A statue of EP is near the Houses of 
     Parliament.  A marvelous book taken from a television series 
     _Shoulder to Shoulder_ describes the battle for English women's 
     suffrage.

           B. July 14, 1862, Florence Bascom, American geologist.  First 
     womanto receive a Ph.D. degree from any American university (John Hopkins).
     Instrumental in making Bryn Mawr a major center for geology as its
     longtime, much revered professor, first women to be elected a fellow 
     of the Geological Society of America. 

           B. July 14, 1868, Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, British 
     intelligence agent, traveler, author, alpine climber, and 
     archaeologist.  Headed forum which chose Faisal I as king of the newly 
     independent Iraq. Founder of the national museum in Baghdad. 

           Event July 14, 1917: The National Women's Party begins its 
     picketing of the White House and by August 1917, arrests of the 
     pickets began. Most were charged for being on the sidewalk too close 
     to the White House.  Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the more numerous 
     American Women's Party of 3.5 million as opposed to a few thousand in 
     the National Women's Party is FURIOUS.  Catt's carefully constructed 
     network of political pressure that had swung public opinion stood in 
     danger.  Catt had built a web of effectiveness in Congress and the 
     White House based on political cooperation, a plan which succeeds in 
     guaranteeing women the vote when President Wilson reverses himself and 
     he calls for women's suffrage in September 1918, in a speech before 
     the U.S. Congress. 

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

           "Because of death during childbirth, the life expectancy of a 
     female infant born in 1900 was 48 (35 for married women), but by the 
     end of this century, it is anticipated that life expectancy of a 
     woman will be eighty. 
           "With birth control, a woman's life in one century has been 
     almost doubled."
           -- _The Great Ideas_, 1966 edition.
     
     >>(C) 1995 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR 
     71902,501-624-5262 for direct fax or voice mail ID #300, 
     irenestuber@delphi.com.
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