Chick History

Wordless Wednesday

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 11:28:00 PST

Archive photo of women working in the Women's Timber Corps,
as part of the WWII Land Army. Collection: Forestry Commission England.

Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 10:02:37 PST

Last month I had the extreme pleasure of meeting Laurel Thatcher Ulrich at my association's annual conference. She gave an incredible plenary address to the audience (full house) on her current research. I know I speak for so many of us when I say Ulrich is an icon for social history and women's studies, and so meeting her and finally being able to hear her in person was incredible.

Ulrich should need no introduction. That famous slogan "Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History" comes from a paper she published in 1976. The original phrasing was "seldom make history." The die hards love her from her Pulitzer-prizing winning book A Midwife's Tale, which recreates the life of post-colonial America through the diary of a Maine midwife, Martha Ballard. If you have not read it, do not simply put it on your reading list, put it at the top. Through her painstaking research of early American documents -- marriage certificates, death certificates, house hold inventories -- and combing through a woman's diary that nobody else thought was worth it, Ulrich brings to life the people and time of early America in a way few historians had done before her.

If you've ever wondered about the description of Chick History - a place to come together and (re)learn about all the cool things chicks have done that, like the dishes, otherwise might go unnoticed - it is an homage to Ulrich and her work. Ulrich has made a career out of looking for history in places rarely visited before the 1980s -- diaries, court records, newspapers articles beyond the front page, quilts, needlework, household economies, etc. -- and demonstrating how that history relates to a broader dialogue. How well-behaved women do make history, we've just been looking in the wrong places.

In her talk at the AASLH conference, Ulrich spoke about her current research for her forthcoming book A House Full of Females: Faith and Families in Nineteenth-Century Mormon Diaries. The work she's shared so far, and where she is going with the book, is amazing. In true Ulrich style, she's uncovered a world of feminism, political unrest, polygamy, religious refugees, and marital strife, all wrapped up in the world of early American Mormons, and all uncovered by researching women's history and the things we left behind.

I encourage everyone to listen to this 2007 interview of Ulrich on Meet the Author. Inspired by the pop sensation of the slogan, she published the self-referential Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, another great book on history and how history is made. In the interview she talks about the book, her findings, and her own take on the slogan that is more famous than she is. There is also an American Experience: A Midwife's Tale that is worth checking out too, in addition to all her books!

Women of the 1900 Olympics

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 08:57:48 PDT

Charlotte Cooper, All-Star
Tennis Player

The 2012 London Summer Olympics marks the first time in Olympic history that all participating countries have female athletes competing. The ancient Olympics, of course, did not allow females to compete. And the very first modern Olympics in 1896 had no women competing. Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who organized the 1896 Games felt that their inclusion would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect." Four years later, as part of the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, Summer Olympics were organized but this time without de Coubertin and other IOC members for various political reasons. Most significantly, women were allowed to compete.

The age of modernity had set in. Whether cycling, playing basketball, campaigning for the right to vote, or going out in public without a chaperon, the New Woman had arrived and was ready to demonstrate she was more than just a domestic goddess. While tennis and golf were the only sports that held events for just women, women athletes competed in a total of five sporting events at the 1900 Olympics. Interesting, the 1900 Olympic Games did not award medals for first, second, and third place; only first and second. The IOC retroactively has gone back and awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals for first, second, and third place accordingly.

Charlotte Cooper was one of the best female tennis players Britain had produced. By the time the 1900 Olympics rolled around she had already won three Wimbledon titles. Lawn Tennis had two events women could compete in, women singles and mixed doubles. Charlotte entered both and won the gold medal in both, always playing in ankle length skirts as was the dress code for the era. Her doubles partner was Reginald Doherty. She would go on to win two more Wimbledon titles and played competitively into her fifties. Seven other women competed in tennis that year. [1]

Originally having arrived in Europe to study art under Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin, Margaret Ives Abbott was the first American woman to win first place in an Olympic event. She and her mother entered a nine-hole, women’s golf tournament not realizing they were part of the Olympic Games that year, like many of the competitors, as the event was so poorly organized. She died in 1955 never realizing she had competed in what was considered an Olympic golf tournament and the she had won Gold. She and her mother were among ten women playing golf that year.

Competing against seven men in Croquet were three French women named Marie Ohnier, Madame Després, and Filleaul Brohy according to the Journal des Sports and La Vie au Grand Air, a weekly Parisian sports journal. The 1900 Games would be the first and only time Croquet was an official sport in Olympics. None of the women placed in the top three.

Hélène de Pourtalès, playing for Switzerland, may be one of the most contested female athletes from the 1900 games. It’s believed she was a member of a co-ed crew in the Yachting events on the Swiss boat Lérina, which won a gold medal and a silver medal in two competitions. However, some believe that she was the owner of the yacht, and therefore her listing as winner was as the owner, not an actual competitor.[2]

Hélène de Pourtalès,
Sailor or Yacht Owner?

Elvira Guerra,
Hacks and Hunter Rider

And probably one of the least known, but arguably most fascinating, competitors from the 1900 Paris Olympics was Italian horse-rider Elvira Guerra. She was the daughter of an Italian circus owner and began her equestrian career in the Big Ring as a ballerina horse rider. She finished ninth place in the Hacks and Hunter combined event, which is pretty much just riding a horse according to this blog. Nevertheless, she did compete side-saddled, which to this contemporary woman is no small feat. Like the croquet players and the sailors, she competed against men. It’s possible that one other woman competed but her name is lost to history. Hack and Hunters is no longer an event and some question its official inclusion in the Olympic program for 1900.

References:

[1] Information for each competitor is taken from the website SR/Olympics.
[2] Mallon, Bill. "The First Two Women Olympians" in Citius, Altius, Fortius, Autumn 1995, No. 3, p. 38. Available in pdf format from the AAFLA.

2013 Women's History Month Theme and Call for Nominees

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:42:25 PDT

This week, the National Women's History Project announced their 2013 theme for Women's History Month in the US. The theme will be:

"Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics"

They've also put out an open call for nominees of women who should be highlighted in those areas.

What a great theme. I am happy to say it is going to be so easy to find many incredible women have worked in those fields. I think we all know Ada Lovelace is going to be prominently featured, that's a given. Chick History will start planning now for the big celebration next March!

Setting the Record Straight on Elizabeth I: Part 3

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 02:30:02 PDT

Welcome to the third and final installment of Janice Formichella’s interview with Ashlie Jensen. In the first two segments Janice asked Ashlie about her role as interpreter at The Higgins Amory, her use of authentic Elizabethan costumes, the misconceptions Ashlie hears about Queen Elizabeth I, and her role setting the record straight about the fascinating English Monarch. In this last segment Ashlie tells Janice about her own research into Elizabeth’s life and the importance of women’s history. I hope you have enjoyed this piece as much as I have!

Got a question??? Need a myth about Elizabeth busted?? Ashlie and Janice are available for questions, so leave a reply here and they will answer you! Ask them anything!

==============

JF: In your own research on Elizabeth, what has been the most interesting thing you've discovered that surprised you?

There are too many things! I guess I will pick one political, one private.

Politically, I am constantly impressed by the way in which Elizabeth governed: it was a combination of brilliant diplomacy, sheer tenacity, and play-acting. The laws she passed, her special care for the quality of life of the middle class and the poor, her stance on religion, and her ability to keep nations lying in wait to see who she would marry (she never did, of course) for decades, are a source of endless fascination for me. I take special care to write articles on these topics on my blog. Much has been done to represent Elizabeth as a patron of the Elizabethan theater, which of course she certainly was, but I also want to make her political accomplishments interesting and accessible to my readers.

Privately, I have always been impressed by Elizabeth's effort to create the family that she never really had as a child. The most iconic example is the locket-ring she had commissioned and wore on her person until her death. Inside the secret compartment was a miniature portrait of her mother and a miniature portrait of herself, side by side. She kept the mother she never knew, but we know she admired close to her at all times. Because this is one of my favorite "secrets" about Elizabeth's life, and a good story telling device, I bought a replica of this ring from Sapphire and Sage. I use it to interpret, and it is always a big hit!

Concerning family, Elizabeth also made a great effort to bring her maternal relatives (through her aunt Mary Boleyn) into her inner circle. Her cousin, who also might have been her half brother, Henry Carey Lord Hunsdon, was a personal friend and loyal subject. The close friendships Elizabeth had with females you can count on one hand, but most of those were with her female Carey-Howard relatives. Elizabeth was also a devoted godmother to a few of her courtier's children, writing them letters, some of which survive (to John Harrington, for example), and paying their bills for university and even attending their graduations.

JF: Why do you think women's history is so important?

Ashlie interpreting one of the
galleries at the Higgins Armory.

The standard school curriculum in America only addresses women in history in passing. Most textbooks only allot a side-bar or inset box in every chapter to briefly remind students that "Hey, women were here, too!" This is unfortunate, as the last 10-15 years of medieval and early-modern studies have shown us that women's lives in the past were as varied as women's lives today. I am passionate about Joan of Arc, but I want people to know that Joan of Arc was not the only inspiring woman in history. One of my Pinterest boards is called "Remarkable Women of History"; I created it so that people can simply log on and be inspired by pictures and mini-bios of women from every period of history.

I believe you have to light the spark of history early; I try to encourage young girls and the parent's I speak with to go to their local library and to visit historic sites and museums to uncover women's history outside of the school curriculum. If my mother hadn't done that for me when I started getting curious about history, I doubt I would be where I am today.

I have always maintained that if I can get just one little girl as excited about history as I am, then I have done what I was put on this earth to do. Already, I have received a few letters and photos and in-person thank-yous from parent's, telling me that I have gotten their daughters to fall in love with Elizabeth, or Grace O'Malley (the Irish Pirate Queen of Connaught that I sometimes play) or women's history. Those stories move me, and they remind me why I do what I do.

==========

About Ashlie Jensen: Ashlie’s website is Being Bess, dedicated to celebrating the life of Elizabeth Tudor (1533-1603) and the legacy of her reign as Queen of England (1558-1603). You can Follow her on Twitter. Check out her pins on Pinterest. Visit the Higgins Armory Museum Website or Like the Higgins Armory Museum on Facebook Page.

About The Feminist Guide: Founded by Janice Formichella, The Feminist’s Guide is a women’s history project and website designed to document and highlight the various locations around the country where notable women have lived, worked, and are memorialized. You can learn more about the project at www.thefeministguide.com

Setting the Record Straight on Elizabeth I: Part 2

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 07:19:14 PDT

Today we continue with The Feminist’s Guide’s Founder Janice Formichella’s interview with women’s history scholar and Elizabeth I interpreter Ashlie Jensen. In Part 1, Ashlie discussed her role as interpreter at The Higgins Amory and use of authentic Elizabethan costumes. In this portion of the interview Janice and Ashlie discuss Ashlie’s role in dispelling the many wild misconceptions about the life of Elizabeth I.

=================

JF: What are some of the common misperceptions about Elizabeth that you often help to correct?

I think it is very easy for people who are new to Tudor history, or have experienced it peripherally, to take cinematic interpretations of Elizabeth as gospel. This is completely understandable, of course, and I often point out the seemingly systematic artistic licensing that goes on in "historical" movies, while also directing those who are interested to more accurate versions. I even have a page on my blog that is dedicated to analyzing and reviewing both the good Tudor and Elizabethan films and the bad because of this problem!

The films that I have learned, through talking with the public, have misrepresented Elizabeth and her reign the most are: Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age by filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. I will be the first to admit that Kapur's Elizabeth was the first film concerning my heroine that I ever saw. Cate Blanchett does a wonderful job capturing the essence of Elizabeth, and I can find no fault in her performance, especially considering the complete travesty of the script she was given!

Ashlie dressed in only a breastplate

for the famous Tilbury Speech as

Elizabeth I, what the Queen

likely wore in reality.

Because of those films, people regularly ask me, "Did Robert Dudley really betrayed Elizabeth to the Spanish?" No. "Did Elizabeth really have a romantic relationship with Sir Walter Raleigh?" No. When I do my Tilbury program, people expect me to be wearing a full suit of armor, when we know that all that she likely wore over her dress was a gorget and/or a breastplate etched with mythical creatures. Knowing armor as I do, I think it is worth mentioning that the suit Blanchett wears in the film is a composite suit from a myriad of different centuries. Finally, the time-line of Elizabeth's reign is inaccurate in those movies, which has caused considerable problems in correcting the chronology. I personally will never understand why Hollywood tampers with history when it is already sensational, exciting, and somewhat scandalous to begin with!

JF: What is the wildest, most misinformed thing you have ever heard about Elizabeth?

This one is easy; all the wild stories I hear have to do with Elizabeth's sex life (or lack thereof). These stories have been around for centuries, because the easiest thing you can do to attack a powerful woman is draw attention to her sexuality; there is not a single remarkable woman in history that has not been slandered in this way. For example, Cleopatra VII is still having her reputation rehabilitated because of the lies circulated by her enemies thousands of years ago, so who knows what people will be saying about our female political leaders years from now!

Because of the movie Anonymous, which I have addressed in detail on my blog, people ask me about Elizabeth's "secret children" a lot. The "Prince Tudor" theory has been around for ages, starting at the end of Elizabeth's reign when a man appeared at the Spanish court claiming to be Elizabeth's son. There are two plausible explanations for this young man's claim, and I intend to do a piece concerning the Prince Tudor theory on my blog in the near future. Even though Elizabeth having children has been time and again dis-proven, people still want to believe that Elizabeth had multiple secret children whom she hid away. What does this say about us? Is it because it is perceived unnatural to think that a woman would go throughout her life without having children? Is it because of our pre-occupation with sex scandals? I don't know.

And now, thanks to Anonymous, some people believe that Elizabeth even had an incestuous relationship with one of her children as well! Elizabeth had her flaws, (as do we all) but I do not believe that she ever would have put her position at risk by having sexual liaisons out of wedlock, conceiving children and then having them spirited away. She valued her role as Queen of England too much to engage in any scandalous behavior that could cause her people to turn against her and have her deposed. Also, I think the trauma's of her own childhood as a neglected princess who was legally declared a bastard by her own father would have psychologically prevented her from having children that she would then never acknowledge or care for in any way.

And as for whether I think Elizabeth was a virgin or not? Well, I think it is somewhat of a mute point, but my research has led me to believe that she was a 'technical' virgin.

=================

Stay tuned to Chick History for the final part next Monday!

Ashlie Jensen: Setting the Record Straight on Elizabeth I

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 01:00:03 PDT

Chick History would like to welcome to the website Janice Formichella, founder of The Feminist’s Guide, a travel website designed to document and highlight the various locations around the country where notable women have lived, worked, and are memorialized. Today is the first in a three-part interview Janice conducted for Chick History with Ashlie Jensen, an Educator and Elizabeth I interpreter at the Higgins Armory. Enjoy!

=====================
by Janice Formichella

As far back as I can remember I have been fascinated by female members of royal families, particularly those of the British monarchy. Queen Elizabeth I has always been someone who I have had a deep interest in and respect for. I wrote about this life-long interest of mine in a recent Women’s History Month post and highlighted my favorite royal women. It was through this post that I met the talented and charming Ashlie Jensen, who introduced herself to me on Twitter after reading my piece. Ashlie and I struck a quick friendship and as I learned about her career as an Elizabeth I interpreter I became determined to work together in some capacity, and to promote her exciting work.

Ashlie works at the Higgins Amory in Worchester, MA. Among other things she acts as a first-person interpreter of Queen Elizabeth I, meaning that she wears authentic Elizabethan costumes and acts as Elizabeth in museum tours, skits, lectures, and more. Ashlie writes her performances herself and even designs and sews her own costumes. I think she probably has the coolest job of anyone I know.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Ashlie and learn more about her background and profession promoting the history of England’s greatest monarch. She is an inspiration to anyone who wants to gain greater visibility for the stories of women and I am so glad to have made friends and allies with such a wonderful person!

JF: What part of your job do you love the most?

I love interacting with the public. That is the best part of my day. Whether I am running a role-play or a craft with a school program, doing a show, or just talking with people about our collection in the Great Hall of the Higgins Armory Museum, I am happy because I am educating people about history. I can't get enough of what I call "geeking-out" with a person I have never met before over history!

Ashlie in one of her hand-sewn costumes

she uses when interpreting Elizabeth I.

JF: I saw you discuss your gorgeous costumes in an interview on your site and am amazed that you sew them yourself. Where do you find the patterns, and how do you maintain historical accuracy?

Thank you for noticing the effort myself and my talented mother put into creating historical clothing! Historical accuracy has always been extremely important to me; even in high school, I was the "historical accuracy police" for the drama department and my fellow medieval enthusiasts. I feel that accurate clothing only enhances my interpretation of Elizabeth I and the other historical women I portray. It is one thing to see these voluminous dresses on screen in a movie, but quite another to see them up close. I allow those I interact with to touch the clothes and accessories I am wearing and to ask questions; this really brings alive the time period for them!

One way I maintain historical accuracy is by reading contemporary sources; my colleagues and I cannot stress enough the importance of reading literature and viewing art from the time period you are aiming to re-create. Another way is that I only use patterns that are based off of surviving garments in museums or private collections; a close second to this is using patterns based off of illuminations from Books of Hours or portraits. And in using these patterns, I only use fabric, trim and notions that were readily available for the time period.

If you are just getting into historical costuming, I recommend getting familiar with Sumptuary Laws. Sumptuary Laws are a system of laws put in place by every ruler of every country, in every time period, that dictate what fabrics and even what colors you can wear based on what class you are born into. These can also include what hairstyles are appropriate to wear. With my Elizabethan costuming, I am playing the queen, so far more fabrics and styles are available to me than if I were portraying a middle-class working woman.

The most important thing for me is to own as many replica pieces of garments and accessories associated with Elizabeth as is possible, in order to tell her story better.

JF: What is the most common question you get at the museum about Elizabeth?

When I am dressed as Queen Elizabeth, people tend to play along with my first person interpretation and ask me questions as if I really were Elizabeth. When I am not dressed as Elizabeth, but the topic of her comes up, I get entirely different types of questions!

After I have done one of my programs as Elizabeth, children usually zero in on one of the following: Elizabeth's childhood or my clothes. I try to give child-friendly, but still truthful answers about Elizabeth's relationship with her father, her sister, and her time spent in the Tower of London, which they always want me to elaborate on. If the kids are really young, I concentrate on conveying Elizabeth's triumph over adversity, rather than the sad or graphic details of her formative years. And when kids ask about my clothing, I do break character a bit and show them the different layers of my historically accurate garb. Lifting one's skirts is something, of course, that Queen Elizabeth herself would never do!

The most common question adults ask me is: why do I feel so strongly that Elizabeth is worth knowing about? My answer is always this: Elizabeth survived a childhood of neglect, scandal, and then danger, to become the greatest monarch England has ever had. She inherited a country that's treasury was drained, was suffering from religious persecution and mistrust of government, and had recently lost its last hold on the continent in Calais, France. Through her keen political acumen and her ability to listen to wise council, Elizabeth was able to rebuild the treasury, establish a moderate religious policy that was unprecedented, and thus keep her country from the religious wars that were destroying the rest of Europe. In Elizabeth's time as Queen, during which she sacrificed her personal happiness in order to give herself entirely to serving her people, England became economically and artistically rich, and she laid the foundations for England as Empire. I don't think anyone can hear her story and not be inspired!

=====================

Stay tuned to Chick History for more from our wonderful interview with Elizabeth I interpreter Ashlie Jensen. In the next segment Ashlie discusses her role in helping to set the record straight when it comes to Queen Elizabeth’s history and the many misperceptions about her life.

June Facebook Giveaway Winner!

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:40:29 PDT

Vivian Taylor!

Congratulations, you are the winner of the Facebook Book Giveaway! Email me at chickhistory@gmail.com with your contact information and I will send you your free copy of "A Border Passage: From Cairo to America - A Woman's Journey by Leila Ahmed." Happy Reading!

If I don't hear from Vivian Taylor by June 5, I will draw another winner.

Mary Cassatt: Print Maker Extraordinaire

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 22 May 2012 07:07:27 PDT

Today, May 22, is the 168th Birthday of Mary Cassatt who was one of the most innovative artists of the nineteenth century. I often feel she doesn’t get her due as a true genius. Most critics fashion her a sentimental women artist and focus on her mother and children paintings that made her a lot of money when she was working in Paris. Even those don’t get their due as Modern interpretations of the Madonna and Child theme. She really is a complex, misunderstood woman artist. For her birthday, I dug out an old magazine article I wrote on her when working for the National Museum of Women in the Arts that focuses on her innovation in printmaking. I wrote it to correspond to a donation of prints the museum received, so I tweaked it a little bit for my blog.

==================

In 1879 Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Félix Bracquemond, and other artists of the group that would later become known as the Impressionists began discussing a new print journal, Le jour et la nuit, to which many in their circle would contribute major prints. Through the practice of printmaking, Degas insisted, they would learn to draw and perfect their art. Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), who had distinguished herself a few years earlier as the only American to exhibit with the Impressionists, was invited to participate. While the journal was never published, the project cemented a close friendship between Cassatt and Degas, and it began Cassatt’s lasting interest in printmaking.

For over thirty years, Cassatt embraced the challenge of printmaking and created over two hundred prints. She believed printmaking was the perfect artistic discipline for learning to draw, as it required great control and skill. Employing a range of printing techniques, from drypoint to hard- and soft-ground etching and aquatint to color prints, she drew her images on metal plates from which multiple impressions could be pulled. Her experiments would lead to one of the greatest contributions to graphic art—her “ten color prints”—which introduced new techniques to color printing.

Cassatt and all other “modern” painters wrestled with how to make color prints. In 1890, Cassatt visited the great exhibition of Japanese art at the École des Beaux Arts, and was inspired by the subject matter and unfamiliar technique. She wrote to Berthe Morisot that she [Morisot] “couldn’t dream of anything more beautiful.” She purchased several Japanese woodcuts and studied the centuries-old technique until she could translate it into her own printmaking. With this endeavor, Cassatt introduced a new chapter to the history of printmaking by creating a series of ten color prints modeled after Japanese methods.

Side by side, the similarities are remarkable. On the left is a wood-block print by Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1865), one of the most prolific Japanese artists of the ukiyo-e style. On the right is Cassatt's The Coiffure from her series. Cassatt even rendered her sitter with subtle Asian facial features, which did not go unnoticed by the public who saw her exhibition.

Cassatt’s innovation lay in mixing printing techniques and experimenting with the process of applying color to the plate. She used one plate for the tonal area and another for drypoint lines, applying color by hand to each of the plates, which were then successively impressed on paper. The procedure was complex and labor intensive, requiring a day of preparation just to ink and reprint the plates for each of the impressions. In addition to technique, she also borrowed the Japanese style of using outlines to suggest fully rounded contours, almost completely eliminating the traditional shading and tonal variations that create the illusion of depth in Western art.

The set of ten color prints, along with a series of twelve drypoints, were shown in an exhibition at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris in 1893. The show received accolades from critics and contemporaries. According to a letter written by Pissarro to his son, her tones were exceptionally fine and her results were as beautiful as those executed by Japanese masters. Cassatt’s success with her ten color prints added to her standing as an artist, and it is remarkable to note that she most likely did not use any preliminary color sketches.

Cassatt’s reputation as an artist put her in connection with leading Parisian dealers and artists. This stature led to another of Cassatt’s contributions to the history of art. At the turn of the century, Cassatt became a conduit to several prominent American collectors, assisting them with assembling their own private collections of European masterpieces. Her role as art advisor created the greatest American collections of French Impressionism.

For the remainder of her artistic career, she divided her time between the passion of advising and her own work, continuing to work on metal plates to improve her draftsmanship. In 1910 she ceased working on metal, as the shiny surface aggravated her failing eyesight, and she stopped printmaking altogether four years later. To see all ten prints from Cassatt's series, you can visit the National Gallery of Arts online exhibition Mary Cassatt — Selected Color Prints.

Facebook Giveaway: A Border Passage Memoirs

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:21:33 PDT

Time for another Facebook Giveaway. This month, Chick History will give away a free copy of A Border Passage: From Cairo to America - A Woman's Journey by Leila Ahmed. These memoirs were originally published in 1999 and republished in 2012 with a new forward.

Publisher's description: In language that vividly evokes the lush summers of Cairo and the stark beauty of the Arabian desert, Leila Ahmed tells a moving tale of her Egyptian childhood growing up in a rich tradition of Islamic women and describes how she eventually came to terms with her identity as a feminist living in America. As a young woman in Cairo in the 1940s and '50s, Ahmed witnessed some of the major transformations of this century—the end of British colonialism, the creation of Israel, the rise of Arab nationalism, and the breakdown of Egypt's once multireligious society. Amid the turmoil, she searched to define herself—and to see how the world defined her—as a woman, a Muslim, an Egyptian, and an Arab. In this memoir, she poignantly reflects upon issues of language, race, and nationality, while unveiling the hidden world of women's Islam. Ahmed's story wil be an inspiration to anyone who has ever struggled to define their own cultural identity.

How to Enter: Visit and Like the Chick History Facebook Page. A random fan will be selected and the winner announced on Facebook, Twitter, and the Blog.

Deadline: Winner will be announced June 1, 2012.

Chickcast Update: May 2012 Show Notes

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:06:05 PDT

CHICK NEWS
The earth mother of all neolithic discoveries
Pearl Harbor surprise: Photo of female firefighters wasn't from Dec. 7
'New' Jane Austen portrait unearthed by author
New Canadian Hundred Dollar Bill Depicts a Woman–U.S., Take Note!

RECENTLY RELEASED BOOKS

Chickcast Update: May 2012

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:47:21 PDT

Update on Chickcast programming for Chick History.

Who Was That Naked Female Gladiator Anyway?

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:41:02 PDT

About two weeks ago, the University of Granada released new research on a statue in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, Germany, identifying it as a female gladiator. If this is true, it would be the second known statue of a female gladiator in existence. Despite missing a hand and part of a leg she is pretty intact, which is a lot to say for antiquity sculpture.

There was various reprinting of the original article, all reporting the rarity of the statue and making the case for the existence of female gladiators during Ancient times using a multitude of literary and physical sources. So we all agree now that there were female gladiators. But it got me to wondering, just who was that naked female gladiator in real life?

The bronze statue dates to nearly 2,000 years ago, which aligns nicely to when most of the Roman written record mentions female fighters in the Gladiator games. Nero once held a game in honor of his mother in which “men and women not only of the equestrian but even of the senatorial order appeared as performers in the orchestra, in the Circus, and in the hunting-theatre, like those who are held in lowest esteem.”[1] Was our little warrior perhaps a member of the upper echelon, who sought thrill and adventure, and began competing as a gladiator? If so, she would have fallen out of grace with her fancy friends because even though gladiators could become celebrities, they were of a very low class.

Emperor Domitian was known to hold elaborate games and gladiator spectacles and even staged battles at night with woman. One time, he even pitted women and dwarves together for a novel thrill.[2] As gladiator games evolved to keep up with the times, sponsors who hosted them had to look for ever increasing ways to shock the audiences and keep them entertained. Mock seat battles. Giant hunts with live animals. And yes, women fighters. Could our little warrior have been one of these? A professionally trained, volunteer gladiator who lived in the gladiator school, fought 3-4 times a year (like a modern day boxer), kept her prize money, and became a celebrity fighter?

This statue from the British Museum is the first known depiction of female gladiators in existence. While difficult to make out, the two figures have braided hair and breasts. The confirmation of their sex is the inscription bearing their names: Amazon and Achilia. Achilia is the female version of Achilles, the famed Greek hero of the Trojan War. Most likely these were not their real names, and what we are seeing here is one of the battle plays that female gladiators could play out. An Amazon woman battling a Greek heroine. Battles were staged and billed, with the main event always occurring last.

Or did our little warrior have a more destitute fate? By the late Republic, at least half of the gladiator population were volunteers. The other half were the slaves, criminals, and prisoners of war that originally made up the fighter pool when the Romans began hosting gladiator games in the 1st century BCE. Was this the case here? Was she a poor Roman girl who broke some law and was turned over to the Gladiator machine?

Was she a prisoner of war from some occupied Roman territory, who was unable to commit suicide like Boudica and traded in? Could she have been a foreign princess like our Cleopatra Selene? The only daughter of Cleopatra, Selene was captured by Augustus and dragged through the streets of Rome in chains. She was able to maneuver her way through his household and become a Queen in her own right, avoiding the fate of the Gladiators. But is it possible this was the fate of our little champion? Was she a foreign princess brought to Rome and forced into this life?

We will probably never know exactly who she was and what events in her life led her to the Gladiator ring. But what is evident by her pose is that whatever battle this was, she was victorious.

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[1] and [2] Both of these accounts are taken from the Roman record, and sourced from the article "Female Gladiators of the Ancient Roman World," by Steven Murray in the Journal of Combative Sport, July 2003.

Wordless Wednesday

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:47:51 PDT

Who knew that it was a woman who started the Planking craze?

1862 - The true and tragic story of Mary Ramsdale and Family

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:53:58 PST

Today's post is the last in a series of guest posts by David Turner from Turnip Rail. This post has always been one of my favourites by David because it reminds us all that history is, at it's core, about people.
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Originally posted:
WEDNESDAY, 21 APRIL 2010
- by David Turner

Sometimes I come across some shocking and very sad stories when doing my research on the Victorian railway. I freely admit that it is easy for historians to view groups people in the past, particularly the poorer sections of society, as homogeneous faceless statistics. We can then use the statistics as evidence and can draw conclusions. When doing my work I rarely have need to move past this approach or acknowledge that every statistic I employ as evidence was a person with emotions, desires, highs and lows. This is why the case of Mary Ramsdale and her family particularly got to me this week. I feel the need to share it with everyone as it is probably the first time that she and her family have been acknowledged individually by anyone for 150 years. Also it just made me feel very sad.

A bit of background is required. When a railwayman was killed on the line railway companies, as an act of benevolence, would employ the widow so as to give support to the family. They were employed in such roles as Gatekeepers, Waiting Room Attendants or Charwomen. These jobs were unsurprisingly very poorly paid, and women in them would receive roughly between 10 and 15 shillings a week (£34 to £51 today).

Mary was employed as a Waiting Room attendant at Southampton station after the death of her husband. Evidence from the Parliamentary accidents return shows that a William Ramsdale, the Gatekeeper at Ashley Level crossing near Ringwood, was struck by a train in May 1859 while attempting to prevent a person from crossing in front of it. Given the proximity of Ringwood to Southampton, the unusual surname, and the time between the date of his death and the story I am about to recount, it is almost certain that this was Mary's husband.

The first time that I came across Mary was in a Traffic Committee minute of January 1862 (RAIL 411/231), when Richard Beach, Superintendent of the Southampton Station, wrote to the Traffic Committee regarding a complaint made against her :-

“23rd January 1862 – 1034) Mrs Ramsdale – Read letter from Mr Beach, Southampton, reporting a case against Mrs Ramsdale the Woman in the Waiting Room at Southampton.
Mrs Ramsdale to be cautioned.”

Given her low wage, the ease with which railway companies dismissed their staff, the harsh rules and regulations of railway employment, and the difficulty a widow would have getting a job elsewhere, for Mary to be risk her employment would suggest that her mental health was not good. This was confirmed later in the year by the Traffic Committee (RAIL 411/233):-

“13th November 1862 – 387) Mrs Ramsdale – Read letter from Mr Beach, as to the case of Mrs Ramsdale attendant in the Waiting Room at Southampton who has been placed in the Fareham Lunatic Asylum. Further inquiry to be made”

What Mary was suffering with is of course uncertain, however, it seems that given the circumstances of her life after her husband's death it is quite possible that it was some form of depression. This conclusion is given further weight by her circumstances stated at the committee in later weeks.

“27th November 1862 – 422) Mrs Ramsdale – Read letter from Mr Beach, Southampton, with reference to the case of Mrs Ramsdale late Waiting Room attendant there now in the Fareham Asylum stating that the ages of the two children are one 8 years and the other 5 years. Mr Beach to inquire if Mrs Ramsdale's friends will take the children and the company will give a gratuity of £10 per year for two years.”

“11th December 1862 – 446) Mrs Ramsdale – Mr Scott reported further with respect to Mrs Ramsdale late Waiting Room attendant at Southampton. The Children to be placed in the Workhouse as there are no friends who will take charge of them.”

According to the 1861 census there were in fact three children and Beach got the ages of the two he mentioned wrong. They were Mary, aged 9, Emily, aged 6 and Hannah aged 3. Clearly Mary, with the loss of her husband, receiving a low wage, with three children and few friends around her, found her conditions insurmountable.

The last part of the story compounded its highly tragic nature for me. The three girls would have gone into the Southampton Union Workhouse. In 1865 a Poor Law Inspector described it as a place where there was the "mixing together of all classes, including old, infirm and idiots, in rooms in which it was almost impossible for human beings to live." The girls would have been together in the workhouse, however it would have been a horrible, scary experience. It is highly unlikely that they saw their mother again.

I can't tell you what happened to any of them, but at this point it just proves that Victorian Society was extremely harsh, replete with sad and tragic stories, and that perhaps I should stop quibbling when minor things go wrong in my life.

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For the original posting, click here.

Opportunity and Exploitation – The First Female Clerks on Britain’s Railways - 1875

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:57:23 PST

Today's post is the second in a series of guest posts by David Turner from Turnip Rail. This post is one of his early writings on researching some of the first female workers on Britain's railways, a topic he has continued to research and write on more, and some of those links are in this post. The major take away from this piece is: "it should be remembered that the true purpose of the L&NWR's appointments [of women] in 1875 was not through any urge to reform employment practices for women or to open up their opportunities. Rather, the L&NWR saw them as a source of cheap labour in a time when the railway industry's profitability was declining."

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Originally posted:
MONDAY, 1 AUGUST 2011

- by David Turner

Before 1870 most women working on the railway received their jobs as an act of charity from the railway companies on the death or injury of their husbands. After being on a waiting list, they could be appointed as refreshment room attendants, carriage lining sewers, ticket sorters or gatekeepers. Unsurprisingly, these jobs were low paid, took place in poor conditions and had long hours. Yet, being appointed to such a post was far better that the alternatives of poverty or possible confinement to the workhouse. Indeed, as I have written before, the lives of railwaymen’s widows was hard and destitution was always possible.[1]

In 1875 the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR), Britain’s second largest railway company, altered the nature of women’s employment within railway companies by appointing 15 women to clerical roles at the company’s Birmingham Goods Department. This was on the initiative of a ‘Mr Nichols,’ who was the traffic manager at the Curzon Street Station. Strictly speaking, this was not the first time women had been given office-based employment by the railways, and on rare occasions the daughters of stationmasters had been engaged as telegraphists. Yet, the 1875 appointments signalled a change in women’s opportunities on the railways as it was first occasion when clerical positions had been created specifically for women, rather than their circumstances or any charitable intent.

This could possibly linked to the improved education in the period. The 1870 Education Act had extended education (somewhat unevenly) to all children between the ages of 5 and 12. Given that most of the women employed by the L&NWR were ‘young women,’ it could be argued that the expansion of national education facilitated their employment. Indeed, a few years later the women were all described as being ‘fairly educated.’ [2] Yet, while these were progressive steps for womens' employment in the railway industry, overall, railway companies were comparatively slow in appointing women to clerical positions. As an example, the Post Office was employing 3,500 female clerical staff by 1887.[3]

The work and conditions of the fifteen women employed by the L&NWR were described in a number of publications. In 1878 The Englishwomen’s Review (hereon known as 'The Review') stated that the women's work was principally to make 'abstracts from invoices for the ledger accounts of credit customers and for forwarding to the Railway Clearing House.’[4] This work was described by The Review as being ‘not difficult,’ but required ‘care and accuracy.’ Like most clerical jobs in the period, this would have been highly repetitive and dull.

The conditions of the work were not that distinct from those of the male clerks, although Myra’s Journal in 1889 stated that the women worked separately from them and were placed under a matron's charge.[5] Unlike other women performing jobs on the railway network, their hours were relatively tame, and they worked between 9 am and 5 pm. However, as with most clerical work in the period, the reality was that they would have gone home when they finished their assigned work, whether that be at 5, 6, 7 or 8 pm. The pay was pitiful compared with their male colleagues, ranging from 10s to 17s per week (£26 to £44 4s per year). Indeed, most junior clerks on the London and South Western Railway started on £30 per year, but their wages could reach the £100s throughout their career (See here). [6] However, even amongst female clerical workers these wages were poor and Myra’s Journal stated that they were ‘less than those paid by the Prudential Assurance Company.’[7] Furthermore, these women would have had no promotional prospects and presumably they left the company on marriage.

Nevertheless, in comparison with other employment opportunities for young women, working for the L&NWR was deemed better given the office environment. The Review stated that ‘the work affords excellent employment for fairly educated girls whose parents do not wish to send them into shops and factories.’[8] Therefore, in contemporaneous eyes, the avoidance of manual work made up for the fact that the women were poorly paid.

With these appointments being novelties in the railway industry at the time, it is not surprising that they drew criticism. Firstly, some argued that by appointing women to such roles it would threaten men’s jobs. In July 1876 the periodical Judy observed that because of the success of the women at Birmingham and the expansion of the ‘experiment,’ ‘Female engine-drivers and stokers will be the next step of course.’[9] Thus, while Judy was comic publication, this clearly expressed the threat some men felt from women being employed en masse within the railway industry.

Furthermore, in February 1887 The Review noted that a correspondent from the Railway Shareholderhad argued that ‘though paid less…,[women] are totally unable to perform the whole of the arduous and multifarious duties of a corresponding number of male clerks owing to their “want of knowledge of the general routine of work”’ The Review retorted that if there really was a problem it ‘might be easily remedied by more regular training; but we are well disposed to think that the experience of the North Western Company…is conclusive, and that women clerks are up to their work.’[10] Thus, the women were attacked along lines which historically womens’ employment always has been; the taking of men’s jobs and the perceived inability of women to perform their duties adequately.

However, the L&NWR's management were very pleased with the ‘experiment,’ and The Review stated that ‘it is found that the work is done much more accurately than by male clerks, to say nothing of the neatness which is also displayed.’[11] Furthermore, The Cheshire Observer stated that because of this ‘the directors have been induced to try the experiment in other large centres of traffic…we believe the interesting experiment is being tried at Chester Station.’[12] Consequently, by the 1890s the L&NWR had recruited around 180 women for clerical posts,[13] at Camden, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds Chester and Wolverhampton.[14] But the success of the ‘Birmingham fifteen’ had wider implications within the industry. In 1877 The Leeds Mercury reported that other railways were considering employing ‘respectable women’ at stations.[15] Thus, by 1911 Britain’s railways employed 1,120 women in clerical positions (as opposed to 84,802 male clerks.)[16]

It should, however, be remembered that the true purpose of the L&NWR's appointments in 1875 was not through any urge to reform employment practices for women or to open up their opportunities. Rather, the L&NWR saw them as a source of cheap labour in a time when the railway industry's profitability was declining. The Cheshire Observer stated that for all railway companies the employment of the women in clerical positions ‘would be of great consideration in these times of railway competition.’[17] The Leeds Mercury stated that ‘the arrangement is economical, and ought to result in lessening railway expenditure, which has grown unduly in late years, especially in the wages department, and brought about a lamentable reduction in the rate of dividends.’[18]

Thus, the appointment of the 15 clerks at Birmingham was a significant event in the history of women’s employment on the railway, opening up clerical roles for women within the L&NWR and other companies. Nevertheless, the reality was that these women were exploited to improve company profitability. Indeed, this was story repeated in the other railway companies, and in other industries, when they took similar steps.

EXTRA, 11/08/2011: I have since written another blog on this subject to be found HERE

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[1] Wojtczak, Helena, Railwaywomen, (Hastings, 2005), p.1-41
[2] The Englishwomen’s Review, Friday, February 15th, 1878, p.77
[3] The Englishwomen’s Review, Tuesday, February 15th, 1887, p.78
[4] The Englishwomen’s Review, Friday, February 15th, 1878, p.77

[5] Myra’s Journal, Monday, Aril 1st 1889, p.185
[6] The Englishwomen’s Review, Friday, February 15th, 1878, p.77
[7] Myra’s Journal, Monday, Aril 1st 1889, p.185
[8] The Englishwomen’s Review, Friday, February 15th, 1878, p.77
[9] Judy, July 19th 1876, p. 141-142
[10] The Englishwomen’s Review, Tuesday, February 15th, 1887, p.78
[11] The Englishwomen’s Review, Friday, February 15th, 1878, p.77
[12] Cheshire Observer, Saturday, July 15th 1876, p.6
[13] Wojtczak, Railwaywomen, p.29
[14] Myra’s Journal, Monday, Aril 1st 1889, p.185
[15] The Leeds Mercury, Thursday, June 25th, 1877
[16] Wojtczak, Railwaywomen, p.29
[17] Cheshire Observer, Saturday, July 15th 1876, p.6
[18] The Leeds Mercury, Thursday, June 25th, 1877

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For the original posting, click here.

Female Applicants to the Eastleigh Locomotive Works in Wartime

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:25:47 PST

Today is the first in a series of guest posts by David Turner of Turnip Rail. In case you missed the update, while I'm taking a maternity break, David is going to fill in my absence with some of previous posts on women in the Victorian railway. Be sure to check out his website for more of his original research on the British Railway.
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Originally posted:
THURSDAY, 17 JUNE 2010
- by David Turner

Analysing historical sources that don't get much attention is something that always excites my mind. The simple recognition that I could be the last person to touch and view a document for decades, if not centuries, is an amazing feeling.

As some of you are no doubt aware, in the course of my PhD I am acquiring all the information that is available on the female workers of the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR). Over the years I have viewed a lot of documents on a range of subjects, however, it is only when doing this work that I can say that the documents I am using have never been used before by historians. This is a symptom of the fact that women's history, and women's existence in history, has been shrouded from view, hidden by a male dominated field where the emphasis has been on 'great men' and not 'great women'. Further, this has been exacerbated in the case of railway history by the dominance of male researchers, little interested in the contribution of female railway workers to company operations. Therefore, for these reasons the documents I handle when doing this research have potentially never been analysed to discover the history of the individuals contained within them. As such, what I am doing is breaking new historical ground.

In earlier blog posts I recounted the history of female clerks on the L&SWR. In this entry I will look a document I photographed at the Hampshire Record Office earlier this year. It is a list of women that applied to work at the company's Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon works at Eastleigh, in Hampshire, between 1916 and 1923 (example shown). It is not, however, a list of those women who were actually employed at the works, that has seemingly been lost

The document contains a range of information about the women, such as their ages, their addresses, the job they applied for, and any pertinent remarks. It therefore contains interesting information on the women who were living in Eastleigh during this period. For the purposes of this study I am only focussing on the information between January 1916, when the record starts, and November 1918, when the war ended. I will look at three areas of interest that are contained within the document. These are the women's ages, the jobs that they applied for, and any remarks that detailed links with the L&SWR. Before coming to write this blog entry I had not looked at my images of the document, so all the findings are new. However, it does mean that the analysis may still need more work.

I started off looking at the women's ages, the results are shown in Graph 1 below (enlarge by clicking on it).

As shown, the majority of women who applied for employment in the works were in their teenage years. Generally it seems that the minimum age for employment was 14, data which is in line with general company policy by 1916. However, two younger girls thought to try their luck and apply for work. These were Miss D. Bailey, who applied on the 22nd March 1917 to work in the polishing room, and Miss D. Smith, who applied on the 27th March of the same year, aged 13, to do either polishing or lining. Whether they were successful is unknown.

There were also a good number of women who applied to work for the company in their more senior years. Before World War One women were generally employed by the L&SWR as an act of charity if their husband had been killed on the line. They would be given positions as Waiting Room Attendants, Carriage Lining Sewers, or Mess Room Supervisors. Predictably for the era, these jobs had long hours and in most cases lower pay than even the most junior male staff. Therefore, in the case of most of the older applicants for employment at the Locomotive Works in wartime they were in the same, if not similar, situations. For Example, Mrs Scott, who applied on the 14th May 1917 for employment in 'lining and trimming' aged 36, and Mrs Clement, aged 40, who applied on the 1stNovember 1918 to do sewing, both were widows whose husbands had been previously employed at the works. However, some older applicants also had husbands who were unable to work. Mrs A. Golding, aged 36, who applied to do 'anything' in January 1918, had a husband who had been in the army and was an invalid. Therefore, it seems that for the older women in the sample, the majority of them had had some tragedy befall them and were looking to support themselves.

Further, what is also noticeable is that the average age of the women applying for employment went up over the course of the document. The average age of the first 20 applicants in the file was 18.4, the average of 20 selected in the middle was 21.6, and the average of the last 20 was 23.2. I have developed a theory about why this was so. It is possible that the company did employ many, if not most, of the women that applied to work. Thus, by employing more and more female staff they were gradually draining the local area of potential female labour. This forced up the average age of applicants over time as older women, that potentially had familial commitments or for whatever reason had poor financial support, and were less likely to join the workforce in 1916, came to be employed in the later part of the war when they saw that the need was pressing or that opportunities were available. This is more plausible when considering that in 1916 conscription was introduced, and, with increased numbers of men being called up, recruitment for vacancies was possibly stepped up by the company. This is, however speculation and requires more investigation.

I will now move onto the type of employment that the women applied for. The information is shown in Graph 2 below.

Of the 299 women sampled, 178 (59.5%) applied to do 'anything' at the railway works. This shows that the women of Eastleigh were willing to help the war effort in any way that they could. However, the remainder specified what work they wished to do and subsequently have helped me define the restrictions that the L&SWR's management put on where in the works women could be employed.

Of the women who specified where they wished to be employed in Eastleigh, most requested to work on the finishing end of carriage construction or in office activities. Therefore, the jobs applied for were in carriage cleaning, clerical work, polishing, cushion work, dining hall supervision, lining, trimming, painting, sewing or upholstering. Only a small number, 5 in total, applied for work in the labour-intensive parts of the works. For example Mrs E. Warwick, aged 25, applied on the 16th January 1918 to work in the fitting shop.

Therefore, the evidence suggests that the L&SWR only advertised for women to be employed in jobs where the company had allowed them to work before World War One. A glance at staff records from the Eastleigh works in the 1880s and 1890s shows that women at that point were only employed in the Carriage Lining and Sewing Rooms. Therefore, at the Eastleigh works in wartime all that occurred was that the number of jobs in these areas were expanded. While a few women applied for the labour intensive sections of work, I doubt they were allowed into them. As such, even though the female labour force expanded, the divided between what were thought of as 'mens' and 'womens' work did not break down. The reasons for this are not explicitly known, but some obvious theories present themselves such as institutional sexism, management's adherence to tradition gender roles, or possibly a fear of union action from male workers who felt that their jobs under threat. Therefore, employment at the works did not open up new working opportunities for the women of Eastleigh in wartime.

Lastly, I want to look at the women's' links with the company. The results of the data pertaining to 361 women are to be found in Graph 3 below:

The evidence shows that the majority of the applicants had some link with the company and only 33 (9.14%) did not. This reflects the nature of the town of Eastleigh. Eastleigh was only a small village until the L&SWR relocated its carriage and wagon works there in 1891. As a result the company built houses for all its workers and created an entire new town. The number of railway employees living there was further expanded in 1909 when the company finished relocating the Locomotive Works to the same site. As such, it is unsurprising that 328 (90.86%) of the female applicants had links with the railway company as their fathers, brothers and husbands would have worked for it.

Further, it not surprising that because of the works' presence and Eastleigh's status as the regional headquarters of the Locomotive Department, that women with relatives in the Locomotive Department dominated the applications for employment at the works (192 – 53.19%). Contrastingly, those women with relatives in the other two major departments of the company, Traffic and Engineering, only managed to contribute 13.85% of the applications between them. This reflects the nature of railway employment in Eastleigh overall, as while the some employees did work for other departments, the majority were employed in the Locomotive Department.

Also featuring heavily in the study were women who's main relative was deceased, retired or otherwise incapacitated, and 61 of the 361 women were in this position (16.9%). This ties up with evidence presented earlier. It is quite possible that with the war drawing away male labour that these applicants saw employment in the works as an opportunity to improve their lot in life given their financial situations. Of this group, and probably the most interesting individual was Mrs Tapp, who applied on the 29th March 1917 to do any work available. Her husband, had gone down with the R.M.S Titanic. Her case is also important as it raised the question as to whether many of the women in this group had lived difficult existences up until the point they applied for work. The Titanic had sunk five years earlier. Therefore how had Mrs Tapp got on in the period in between, and did wartime vacancies at the works give her her first opportunity of work? Of course, there may have been another explanation, in that employment at the works would have meant moving to a better job. Yet, the sheer number of women in the sample who were in a situation where they had incapacitated or deceased husbands, fathers or brothers, suggests that there was a large body of women in Eastleigh who were out of work who took the opportunity to earn some money and achieve a better life.

This is re-enforced by the fact that the data gives me the impression that applications from women who had no living relatives became more frequent towards the end of the war. Firstly, this potentially indicates that in the earlier parts of the conflict that familial ties with the L&SWR were highly important for women wanting employment, as the knowledge about opportunities for employment were passed on through these relationships. Also, having a relation working for the company was almost certain to improve a person's chances of gaining employment with it. Secondly, it also suggests that as the war progressed, and the local pool of female labour was being drained, more and more women who were in need of work through no fault of their own, came out of the social woodwork to fill vacancies as within the labour market their chances of being employed improved. Of course, this is speculation, but it is a working theory.

What this short study has shown is that the 'average' female applicant to be employed in the works was under the age of 25, applying for a work in the carriage shops and had a relative that was in the company's employ. I have also shown that while the employment opportunities in the works for women grew in number, the types of jobs that they were applying for did not change. Subsequently, the divide between what was thought of as men and women's work that had existed before the war remained in tact throughout. I also have shown that the types of women that applied for employment in the works altered over the period, and some changes in both the age and social situations have been noted. Lastly, this brief investigation has shown that each woman's employment chances, even in wartime, were still dependent on their male relatives' through their relationships and occupations. Overall, this data needs more rigorous analysis and investigation, but this, for a start, isn't bad.

BELOW: I don't have a picture of the shops at Eastleigh where most of the women worked, but this picture is of the Wagon Sheet Making shops at Nine Elms in 1885.

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The original post can be found here.

Short Hiatus From the Blog

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:11:32 PST

You may have been wondering where Chick History has been for the past six weeks. Still here, but taking a little maternity break. In the meantime, I asked one of my favorite bloggers, David Turner, to pinch hit for me while I take some time off from writing. David is a Phd railway historian with the University of York and National Railway Museum's Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History. He does fascinating research on Victorian railways as well as fascinating research on women in the Victorian railways. If it weren't for David, I wouldn't know that before the invention of the carriage toilet, women used to bring chamber pots with them on to train cars in case of an emergency. Think about it.

For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to republish some of his posts from his blog's archives. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. Hopefully I will be back up and writing in time for March and Women's History Month.

Thanks!

-Rebecca

Chick History’s Resolution for 2012 is to Get Inspired

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:52:45 PST

How many women in history can you name? 20? 10? Who are your favorites? Who has inspired you? How would you tell her story?

On January 1, Chick History launched #HerStory - a podcast for 2012 in which each week, a contemporary woman shares the story of a historical woman who inspires her. Hear elected officials, academics, mothers, filmmakers, authors, activists, CEO’s, and more provide a snapshot of these women’s lives, from the headliners to the lesser-known gems. A project by Chick History.

Tune in every week for #HerStory, and get inspired with women's history!

Learn more >>

The Trung Sisters: Vietnam’s First Nationalists

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:27:26 PST

“All the male heroes bowed their heads in submission;  Only the two sisters proudly stood up to avenge the country.”   - 15th century poem

For over a thousand years, the Chinese Han Dynasty ruled over Vietnam as a colonial power. Vietnam had resources, people, and most importantly, the Red River Delta. The Red River Delta is an area in the north of the country that was cultivated for wet rice production, was an important international trading port, and was the land from where the Vietnamese traced their origins. The Han Dynasty had been encroaching on the Lac Lords of Vietnam, the heads of the feudal system that was the foundation of Vietnamese culture. These were the landed aristocrats that had been the ruling noble class for over two millennia.

At first working together in trade and negotiations, the relationship grew authoritarian, and the Chinese began to tax, subjugate, and forcibly assimilate the Vietnamese into the Chinese Empire. By 111 BC, the Han Dynasty had complete control over Vietnam and had divided the kingdom into territories that were ruled by Chinese appointed governors. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

Fast-forward 150 years to 39 AD and we meet one such Chinese governor, To Dinh, who ruled over the Me Linh prefecture. The Vietnamese Lord of this prefecture was General Lac, who had two daughters, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi. The two daughters grew up in a military household and were trained in the art of warfare, weaponry, and martial arts. When it came time for a marriage for the eldest daughter Trac, she married the son of the neighboring prefecture who also hailed from a military noble family. Together these two noble families created a powerful military alliance.

China’s repressive regime, taxation of goods, imprisonment of “uncooperative” Vietnamese, and confiscation of lands was causing open hostility among the aristocracy and peasant populations. Most importantly for our heroines, the Chinese replaced the Vietnamese matriarchal family-system with its strict patriarchal system with rigid social control. This is the kiss of death for any society with any form of equality between the sexes. Just ask our friends Cleopatra and her daughter Selene.

As daughters of a noble Vietnamese family, the Trung sisters were in line to inherit their father’s land and titles. According to Chinese law, they could not. Then, the unthinkable happened. Trac’s husband was executed for protesting a new tax imposed by To Dinh. Trac and Nhi’s inheritance, livelihood, and way of life were in jeopardy. Trac refused to go into mourning and instead she and her sister put all their military training to work and began mobilizing the remaining noblemen and peasants to their cause. Their goal was to oust Governor To Dinh and return Vietnam to an independent kingdom. They organized an army of 30,000 soldiers and led them into battle.

In literature and art the Trung sisters charge into battle atop elephants with swords drawn. Surrounding them are the armies raised by the lords from their individual prefectures. At the head of these armies were the generals the Trung sisters chose to be commanders. Temples dedicated to the Trung sisters that remain today list the leaders and generals of their army. The majority of them are women, including their own mother. One of the generals was a woman named Phing Thi Chinh, who according to legend, gave birth during the revolution and would fight in battle with her newborn strapped to her back.

But why would so many follow two women? Trung Trac and Trung Nhi were also descendants of Lac Long Quân, the original Dragon Lord, the founder of the Vietnamese people. According to their creation myth, The Dragon Lord’s wife laid 100 eggs that would go on to become the 100 noble families of Vietnam. Trac and Nhi’s family were one of those elite. As a matriarchal society were women could hold equal ranking as men, following two women who claimed to be descendents of the Dragon Lord seemed like a no brainer.

Within several months, the Trung sisters had liberated 65 northern citadels in Vietnam and ousted the repressive governor. Trac now commanded an army of 80,000 soldiers. She proclaimed herself Queen of an independent Vietnam and established her capital in her hometown at Me Linh. Some records indicate Nhi was the better warrior. If this is true, it would seem that the Trung sisters followed the typical royal family model of the eldest child being crowned monarch and the younger child named commander of the nation’s army. Other accounts tell us that the two sisters ruled as co-regents of the newly independent Vietnam.

Trac’s reign was dedicated to restoring Vietnam back to its traditional ways. She immediately ended all tributary taxes to China, distributed the treasury of the governor back to the Lac Lords, and attempted to return to a feudal political system. For almost three years, the Trung sisters successfully fought and held off the Chinese, who were not going to give up the Red River Delta so easily.

In 43 AD, the Chinese sent a new general to deal with the Trung Sisters. This time, the Han Emperor put all his resources into the army and taking back Vietnam. Many of the original lords and supporters of the Trung Sisters had returned to their land, taking their armies with them. What was left was no match for the invading Chinese army and they defeated the Trung sisters and put Vietnam back under colonial control. According to Chinese history, the Trung sisters were executed. According to Vietnamese history, they committed suicide by drowning in a river to maintain their honor.

Hai Ba Temple, dedicated to the Trung Sisters.

Centuries later, the Trung sisters became heroes and the first Vietnamese nationalists. A seventh-century retelling imagines Trac’s declaration to her army as putting her duty to country first over her duty to family:

“Foremost, I will avenge my country,
Second, I will restore the Hung lineage,
Third, I will avenge the death of my husband,
Lastly, I vow that these goals will be accomplished”

As with all national heroes, the Trung sisters’ exploits have become epic over time. In one account, they kill a tiger that no one had been able to capture and then write their manifesto on its skin. Every February, there is a celebration held in their honor commemorating their martyrdoms. They remain unifying national heroes to the Vietnamese identify and their association with rebellion against invasion is still evoked today. This poignant video compares the Trung sister’s rebellion against China almost two thousand years ago with the struggles of Vietnam in the twentieth century to regain independence from foreign occupiers.

Recommended Reading:
The Warrior Queens
Encyclopedia of Amazons: Women Warriors from Aniquity to the Modern Era
Herstory: Women Who Changed the World

History Carnival for December 2011

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:32:10 PST

Welcome to the December History Carnival, a potpourri of the best in history blogging for the month of November. I am happy to present for your reading pleasure a selection of nominated posts and some curator's choices. Only at the History Carnival can you find in one place readings on letter writing, bloodletting, the extinct Dodo Bird, the Bee Gees, and Occupy Wall Street. There's even a tale of a gender bender thrown in for good measure. Most importantly, it's just in time for the holiday season, so replenish your historical knowledge so you too are able to give unsolicited facts and opinions to family and friends at holiday gatherings. They're going to love it! You're welcome....

The Chicago History Museum Blog's highly entertaining three part series Ellis Glenn's Queer Story features a turn-of-the-century woman masquerading as a man and swindling money and hearts across the U.S.

Fëanor, from Jost A Mon, introduces us to A Gibb in India and the indigent and military ancestry of the Bee Gees. 

Stephanie Dray enlightens us with How Rain, Grain, and Cleopatra’s daughter fed the Roman Empire.

In The Last Dodo: The Feast That Led To Extinction, Giles Milton at Surviving History teases us with the possibility that mariner Volkert Evertszoon and his shipwrecked crew may have eaten the Dodo Bird into extinction.

Posting at Madame Guillotine, Christopher Scott’s Apotheosis of Mary Jane Kelly  shows us that no matter how much you think you know about a Jack the Ripper victim, you are always eager to read one more article on the subject.

David Turner from Turnip Rail shares his thoughts on Slavery and the Financing of Britain's Early Railways.

Mike Rendell, posting for the English History Authors, shares with us the fascinating details and peculiarities of the postal system and letter writing of 18th and 19th century England in The Humble Envelope.

The always fascinating and obsessively prolific blog Executed Today tells us about Haitian General Jacques Maurepas and His Entire Family who were tortured and executed by Napoleon’s minions towards the end of the Haitian Revolution.

At the Chirurgeon's Apprentice, Lindsey Fitzharris’ article Lancets and Leeches and Cupping! Oh, My! Bloodletting Practices in Early Modern England proves there is always more to be learned about leeching and bloodletting.

Jonathan Dresner from Frog In A Well: Japan gives us his book review of Seppuku: A History of Samurai Suicide and makes me wish I had taken more Far Eastern art history classes in grad school.

In The Strangest Dream - Reykjavik, 1986, Jonathan Hunt writing for Not Even Past, reminds us that even though it was in most of our lifetimes, the historic implications of that famous meeting between two political super powers is lost on today’s younger generation. 

The next two posts exemplify the golden rule of History: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Alan Flower at History and the Sock Merchant traces the violent and revolutionary history of Egyptians in Trouble in Cairo: The Force of History. And the Tenement Museum’s blog educates us on Occupy Wall Street's Historic Precedent.

Scandalous Women offers us two posts this month on “women behaving badly.” Gillian Bagwell introduces us to Jane Lane: The Girl who Saved the English Monarchy. Elizabeth Kerri Mahon, in The Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson, features one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American history.

On the anniversary of The Crystal Palace Fire, Sarah J. Young contemplates the mystique of the building by digging up a vintage newsreel and comparing descriptions of the event.

Madame Guillotine tells us of The Escape of Princess Henrietta, who at age 3, was spirited away by her entourage and traveled 95 miles by foot to Dover, England to escape to France.

And finally, Mike Cosgrave shares the challenges of teaching, world politics, and gaming in Gaming Reality History.

Chickcast 11 - Pocahontas Shownotes

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:27:27 PST

To listen to the Chickcast, click here.

CHICK NEWS

Bulgarian Archeologists Dig Up Unique Thracian Treasure
BBC accused of 'belittling' Florence Nightingale
Faces of the Civil War: Mary Chesnut's photographs back in family hands
A grisly end: 800-year-old remains of witch discovered in Italian graveyard

SLIDESHOW: POCAHONTAS THROUGH THE YEARS

RECOMMENDED READING
The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History
Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma: The American Portraits Series

FURTHER RESOURCES
Pocahontas Archives
Where Pocahontas Pledged Her Love - Podcast

RECENTLY RELEASED BOOKS

Chickcast 11 - Pocahontas

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:18:27 PST

Pocahontas is an American icon and one of the most elusive figures in history. For centuries, what we knew about her came from the written record of the Jamestown colonists. All that changed in 2007 with the publishing of the Mattaponi tribe’s oral history of her life. The book has caused a lot of controversy but it has also shed light on one of history’s most celebrated and misunderstood individuals.

Click here to play the Chickcast.

Subscribe via Itunes.

Download an mp3 or other formats here.

Behind Every American Thanksgiving is a Great Woman

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 08:50:24 PST


Sarah Josepha Hale

“Permit me, as Editress of the "Lady's Book", to request a few minutes of your precious time, while laying before you a subject of deep interest to myself and -- as I trust -- even to the President of our Republic, of some importance. This subject is to have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.”

The holiday of Thanksgiving has become a staple in American life. The good china is brought out, it’s okay to watch football all day long, and it’s permissible to freely eat yourself into a food coma. We assume it has been happening, just like this, since 1621.

Not quite…

For 17 years, Sarah Josepha Hale wrote five sitting Presidents to advocate for a national day of Thanksgiving that all states would celebrate on the same day. The first proclamation for a national day of Thanksgiving came from the Continental Congress in 1777, when they “…recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these United States to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth Day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise…” As President 11 years later, George Washington assigned “Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.” John Adams declared two Thanksgiving holidays during his presidency, and James Madison declared the holiday twice in 1815. Thomas Jefferson never declared any Thanksgiving Days during his administration because “…every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.”

Even with sporadic national declarations and some regions of the country celebrating local customs, Thanksgiving was not a national holiday celebrated every year until the Civil War. Before that, only George Washington’s birthday and Independence Day were national holidays observed annually by every state. For the most part, annual Thanksgiving celebrations were more of a northern ritual as it was seen as a New England tradition. Some Southern states refused to celebrate it all together.

Bobblehead Sarah.

Enter Sarah Josepha Hale, arbiter of taste and style, editor of the famous Lady’s Book magazine, and the predecessor of Oprah and Martha Stewart. For over 40 years, Sarah Hale shaped and informed the opinions of 19th century America. She gave Edgar Allan Poe one of his first breaks as a published poet. She raised the $30,000 needed to complete the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston. She founded the Seaman’s Aid Society. And she is immortalized as a bobblehead figure by the New Hampshire Historical Society. Still don’t recognize her? She also wrote the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

As a New Englander, Sarah had been celebrating Thanksgiving in the local tradition all her life. Her concentrated efforts finally paid off with President Abraham Lincoln who realized the value in establishing a national, unifying holiday that gave thanks and praise. In a letter from September 1863, she urges President Lincoln to declare the last Thursday of every November as Thanksgiving Day and “thus, the great Union Festival of America would be established.” She evens suggests that he act quickly to ensure there will be enough time to inform all the Governors so they can start celebrating that year.

The 1863 letter to Lincoln.

On October 3, 1863, five days after Sarah wrote her letter, President Lincoln declared “…I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” The American Thanksgiving Holiday was thus created and has been celebrated every year since. Sarah was three weeks shy of her 75th birthday.

Calling All History Geeks: December History Carnival at Chick History

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 10:26:41 PST

Chick History is hosting the History Carnival for December. So, keep your eyes out for awesome articles, posts, and blog entries written in the month of November. And of course, if you write something that you want to share, self-nominations welcomed and encouraged! Click here for the Nomination Form.

Very important disclaimer: The post DOES NOT have to be on women's history. The History Carnival is going to give me the chance to embrace and indulge all the other facets of my history geekness.

Huzzah!

Trying to Achieve Sainthood, Female Mystic Inadvertently Wrote First English Autobiography

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:00:14 PDT

Almost 600 years ago, sometime in the 1430s, an English woman in her sixties was asked by several male priests to write her biography for others to learn from. She was not a nun. She was not a vestal virgin. She was a married woman with 14 children who used to own and operate a brewery.

Margery Kempe was born around 1373 into a well-to-do family in Bishop’s Lynn (now King’s Lynn) in the county of Norfolk, England. Her father was a prosperous merchant, member of Parliament, and 5-time mayor of the town. At the age of 20, she married John Kempe and the two enjoyed a privileged life. Margery was focused on making as much money as possible to maintain the luxury to which she had become accustomed. To sustain their lifestyle, Margery even ran two failed businesses, a grain mill and a brewery which were two popular business for medieval women.

When Margery gave birth to her first child she suffered severe post-partum depression. She became suicidal, had manic hallucinations, and even self-mutilated. Thought to be such a danger to herself and others, she was imprisoned for six months. It wasn’t until she told everyone that she had received a vision from God and was now calm again that she was able to secure her freedom. This lesson Margery learned would stay with her all her life: the fine line between madness and holiness.

For roughly the next 20 years everything appeared normal with Margery. Just a typical medieval wife who bore children, supported her husband, and contributed to the town’s economy. Around the age of 40, either out of guilt, boredom, or a true calling, Margery decided she was a child of God. This was not going to be easy for her. Only unmarried women or widows could become nuns. However, Margery was an upper-class business woman and daughter of a merchant. She was educated and knew a thing or two about the world and what her options were.

Margery was living during a time when many questioned the hierarchy of the church and experimented with individual interpretations of faith. Women were especially drawn to this movement because it gave them a place and voice in an otherwise masculine world. Think of Joan of Arc, Catherine of Siena, and Julian of Norwich. There were many examples, especially from Germany, Prussia, and the Low Countries, of mystical woman who claimed devotional piety expressed in direct visions from God and uncontrollable sobbing. Add in Mary Magdalene, a popular figure at the time, and Margery knew she could be a born again Virgin. All she had to do was convince her husband.

In 1413, Margery was able to negotiate an agreement with her husband to live a chaste life. Whether her fourteen children and extreme post-partum played a factor into this is anybody’s guess. Nevertheless, Margery secured what she needed to become a true independent woman. This agreement was considered the permission she needed to travel. Margery traveled the world as a pilgrim to the world’s holy sites, from Spain to Rome and as far as Jerusalem, without her husband. She was welcomed into the homes of the Roman aristocracy as a holy woman and sought after by the sick as a healer and mystic (someone who felt God’s presence through the five senses).

This radical new life was not without hardship. Margery experienced painful criticism and abuse for her decisions. Her fellow Englishmen accused her of hypocrisy because she now chastised the wealthy even though the majority of her life she led a materialist existence. She was attacked for wearing the white clothing that only pious widows could wear even when her husband was still alive. At any given moment during a service she would break into devotional outbursts which got her banned from several churches. Her fellow pilgrims would ditch her during travel because she had become such an annoyance. There were long stretches of time when she would not bathe or eat. Several times she was throne in jail under suspicion of being a Lollard, the precursor to Protestants. All she would ever talk about was religion and what everyone was doing wrong at any given moment. For some, Margery became the girl at the party everyone tried to avoid.

When Margery decided to tell her story, she decided to go for broke. She was going to tell her story as a hagiography - the life of a saint - in the hopes of canonization. Because she was an upper-class woman, Margery used two scribes to dictate her biography. Many have supposed Margery was illiterate because of this and because her contemporaries describe her as unlearned. However, during English Medieval times this only meant she could not read Latin which was reserved for the church and the nobility. As an upper class business woman, Margery possessed lay literacy and the ability to read vernacularly. People who could afford it, like Margery, always used secretaries. Even Alexander the Great used a scribe, Callisthenes, to write his biography.

Margery Kempe has been called many things: madwoman, hysteric, vain, petty, neurotic, painfully boring, and a hypocrite. She was never declared a Saint and probably never will be. The details of her life are only known to us from one source, her own book, which many now site as the first autobiography in English. The window into the life and options for Medieval women that her writings give is priceless. Margery was a wife, mother, caregiver, grain miller, brewer, mystic, female priest, and world traveler. Insane or not, Margery did it her way. In her own words: The Book of Margery Kempe (Penguin Classics)

Further Reading:
Margery Kempe: A Medieval Eccentric
The Enigmatic, Threatening Margery Kempe
The Alleged Illiteracy of Margery Kempe
Margery Kempe: Madwoman or Mystic
Patterns of Polemic: Medieval Women and Christian Doctrinal Reform

Trousers and Trouble: 5 Cross-Dressing Women in History

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:28:20 PST

I’ve always been interested in how cross-dressing women have been interpreted and viewed throughout history. First, many write as if no woman before the 1920s ever put on a pair of pants. Second, any woman who wore pants before then must have been a homosexual because pants were for men. Or, if a woman wore pants it was going against the natural order of femininity.

The last Chickcast we did on two women pirates alluded to this topic. During their lifetime and afterwards, Anne Bonny and Mary Read were described as cross-dressing women and their sexuality and promiscuity were called into question. It seemed for the longest time that a woman in trousers was bound to cause trouble. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1990s that women were allowed to wear pants on the U.S. Senate floor.

Of course, pants were not as widely popular an option for women as they are today. But more women donned pants than you think and for many reasons. They wore pants to make a political statement, because they were more practical for work, and of course, my favorite, pants are just more damned comfortable. Especially if they are pajama pants.

Here are five cross-dressing women from history and the different reasons they wore pants. Let it be known that I am cross-dressing while I write this. A special shout out to fellow blogger Hersteria who inspired the title and whose website is also obsessed with women in trousers.

Wu Zetian: Respect My Authority (b. 624 - d. 705)
Wu Zetian is the only woman in Chinese history to assume the title Empress Regent. Wu started her political career as a concubine in a Tang Dynasty Court. When her reigning husband died, she maneuvered her youngest son into the open emperor slot and ruled as Empress Regent. Early historians were very critical of her, characterizing her as ruthless and describing her reign as corrupt. Others credit Wu and other female members of her court as role models for women throughout the country who ushered in unprecedented high positions in society for women. Wu Zetian and her daughter, Princess Taiping, wore men’s clothing at court to look masculine in public and to exude an air of authority.

Empress Wu Zetian

Joan of Arc: Keep Your Hands off Me (b. circa 1412 – d. 1431)

Whether she was a standard bearer, a tactician, or commander, Joan of Arc became a French national hero and Saint in the Catholic Church. She was involved in several key battles of the Hundred Years War between France and England. Eventually captured by the English and tried for heresy, the nineteen-year-old was burned at the stake. Second to her visions from God, her trouser wearing is the most famous thing about her story. Many have tried to pin her male attire as the sign of abnormal behavior. Careful review of her trial documents reveals that is not the case. She wore pants for ease of movement in the battlefield and to protect her from sexual assault. Joan even credits one of the visions she received as giving her the idea to wear two layers of pants with a complicated belt-system to protect her from male soldiers.

Joan of Arc

Jeanne Baret: Yes, I’m a Man. Can I Have the Job Now? (b. 1740 - d. 1807)

If you've listened to the Chickcast on Pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, then you are already familiar with the idea of girls and women dressing up as men to find work on ships. Jeanne Baret is another example of a woman who dressed as a man to get a job. Jeanne was a working class, French botanist whose lover got a job as a naturalist on a ship that was going to sail around the world discovering things. Jeanne disguised herself as a man to get the job as her boyfriend's assistant. Traditionally, the story of her exposure was told that a tribe of Tahitian islanders outed her because they instinctually knew a female when one came into their presence. However, Glynis Ridely, in her recently released book on Jeanne, claims that the revelation of Jeanne's true identity was more sinister and she experienced great trauma and possibly sexual assault by other crew members.

Jeanne Baret

Dr. Mary Walker: I Cannot Breathe in These Things (b. 1832 - d. 1919)
You might remember Dr. Walker from Civil War Month, which focused on her work as a nurse and surgeon in the U.S. Civil War and as the first and only woman recipient of the U.S. Medal of Honor. Dr. Walker was a busy lady, and in addition to her medical career she was also a major activist in the Dress Reform Movement. For Mary and many others, contemporary feminine attire was repressive and unhealthy. She published and spoke widely on the constrictive nature of corsets that, coupled with always having to wear dresses and skirts, were a physical and cultural tool of repression used on women. Pants were a more healthy alternative than corsets and dresses. For most of her life, Mary wore pants and became famous for wearing a full tuxedo complete with her Medal of Honor pinned to the lapel when she was on the lecture circuit.

Dr. Mary Walker

Frida Kahlo: Somebody Please Give Me Attention (b. 1907 - d. 1954)
Don’t hate me for this last title, because Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was brilliant and I personally believe the Grandmother of the Feminist Art Movement. But, let’s face it, she was a bit of a drama queen. Kahlo is famous for her vibrant, colorful, traditional Mexican wardrobe. But she had two phases in her life when she dressed in men’s clothing. The first was when she was a teenager after the life-altering trolley accident in which she was impaled by a steel handrail that would leave her childless for the rest of her life. The second was after her and artist husband Diego Rivera split. Diego loved for Frida to dress herself in those traditional, over the top Mexican costumes (which you find in many of her self-portraits). When they split she started wearing men’s clothing again and cut her hair short. Eventually they got back together and Frida started dressing in colorful Mexican costumes again. And for disclosure's sake, Frida did have several lovers both male and female. That's dapper Frida on the far left in a family photo.

Frida Kahlo

Chickcast 10 - Pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:55:52 PDT

This episode is a panel discussion on Anne Bonny and Mary Read, the most well documented Western women pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy. They are known as cross-dressing pirates who worked on a ship captained by Calico Jack Rackham, who hid their sex from everyone except their lovers, and were possibly lovers themselves. But is that really all there is to their story?

In this episode, Chick History explored the world of pirates and the world of Anne and Mary to see if we could separate fact from fiction and learn more about these two women who spent two months together on the same pirate ship and then died pregnant and alone in a prison, found guilty of piracy.

Click here to play the Chickcast.

Subscribe via Itunes.

Download an mp3 or other formats here.

RECOMMENDED READING
The Republic of Pirates

Women Sailors and Sailor's Women

She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea

Seafaring Women
A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates

CHICK NEWS

Jane Austen manuscript sells for more than £990,000

Iron Age Body Unearthed In Irish Bog

First Woman to Take Helm of Warship in Britain

Egyptians styled their hair like Marilyn Monroe and Rihanna

RECENTLY RELEASED BOOKS

Women and the Labor Rights Movement

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 11:57:21 PDT

Today is Labor Day in the US, which celebrates worker's rights and the labor rights movement. Women have played a huge role in the labor movement and reform. To honor them, here are two events that have led to major reformations in the laws that govern the safety and fairness of labor.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire:
On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in a sweat-shop factory in the tenement section of New York City. The horrible and unsafe working conditions of the factory led to the tragic events of that day in which 146 women died. Elevators broke down, the fire escape collapsed, and doors were locked. The fire brought a national outcry and through the tragedy major reforms were made for workers safety. To learn more about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, visit Cornell University's Kheel Center website that has done an amazing job of gathering information on the history of the fire, photographs, primary resources, including the trial transcripts, and the outcome and legacy of the event. Here is a video that combines original photographs and interviews of the victims. Viewer discretion advised, as some of the photographs are of a graphic nature.

The Radium Girls
The Radium Girls, as they are known in history, were factory workers across the country who worked in radium application factories. Used mostly in watches to make the numbers glow in the dark, workers dipped paintbrushes into RADIUM and applied them to surfaces then WOULD LICK the paintbrush to keep it pointed. It didn't take long for these women to start getting very sick, suffering from anemia, bone loss, and cancer. Many of the doctors and employers kept the information secret so as not to cause any public damage. The most famous case, in Orange, New Jersey, had five women who would eventually sue the company for damages. This landmark case was the first case in America in which workers sued an employer for health damages, and established the law that individual employees were allowed to sue companies for labor abuse and unsafe working conditions. To learn more about the Radium Girls and the impact on labor in the U.S., check out:

Chickcast 9.4 - BONUS: The Ladies of the Civil War Blog Entries

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:20:55 PDT

For the bonus Civil War Chickcast, here is an audio collection of the five blog entries for Civil War Month. Featured are Anna Ella Carroll, Mary and Mollie Bell, Susie King Taylor, Julie Dent-Grant, and Dr. Mary Walker. Enjoy this bonus Chickcast which shares the stories of Rebel cousins, an African-American, a field surgeon, and more.

Click here to play the Chickcast.

Subscribe via Itunes.

Download an mp3 or other formats here.

Dr. Mary Walker: Trouser-Wearing, Trouble-Making, Medal of Honor Recipient

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:33:19 PDT

1982 Commemorative
Stamp for Mary Walker

On November 11, 1865, Dr. Mary Walker became the first woman to receive America’s highest military honor. She was bestowed the Medal of Honor by President Andrew Johnson for her “valuable service to the Government…as contract surgeon in the service of the United States…and as a prisoner of war four months in a Southern prison.” Two years before her death, in the infamous Purge of 1917, Mary’s name was removed from the official list of Medal of Honor recipients, along with the pallbearers of Abraham Lincoln’s casket and Wild Buffalo Bill Cody. Par for the course, Mary once again got the short end of the stick.

Mary was born in 1832 in New York and raised in a progressive family, working on the family farm and attending the school where her mother taught. She earned two medical degrees. One was from Syracuse Medical College where she became the second woman in America to receive a medical degree, six years after Elizabeth Blackwell in 1849. The second degree was from Hygeia-Therapeutic College, a new school centered on teaching reforms in health that at the time were considered radical. It taught the importance of proper personal hygiene, sterilization in surgeries, nutrition, ventilation of the home, and exercise.

Mary was having a hard time setting up a practice for herself when the Civil War broke out, so she joined the war bandwagon in hopes of securing a position as a surgeon. She had countless doors slammed in her face despite her credentials and letters of support from male physicians. Firmly committed to her practice, she reluctantly volunteered as a nurse and did whatever was asked of her.

When not escorting sick patients or running errands for officers, she was making a name for herself by trying to change hygiene practices in the army hospitals and desperately trying to educate people on the archaic practice of amputations. All her medical career in the army, Mary tried to convince anyone that would listen that the army should be rehabilitating these men, not sawing off their limbs left and right.

Mary exhibiting the
scandalous attire of the
"Grunge Movement" of
the 19th century.

Mary was also causing a stir with her dress. From a young age, Mary wore clothes that suited her occupation. Growing up on a farm, there was no need for petticoats and corsets. She was an adamant supporter of the Dress Reform Movement, whose advocates also included Susan B. Anthony and famed Impressionist Mary Cassatt (the only American artist, male or female, invited to exhibit with the famous French outcasts). This movement worked against the constrictive garments of the 19th century, such as petticoats, bustles, and corsets, which physically restricted the movement of woman. If woman could not move, women could not work. Followers of this movement took to wearing pants under loose fitting tunics and shirts, or in Mary Cassatt’s case, would wear muslin-style dresses.

In 1864, Mary would finally get the official surgeon title she had coveted for years. Working in the field with the Army of the Cumberland along the Tennessee-Georgia border, she became Assistant Surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Volunteers. She proudly wore the uniform of a Federal surgeon - complete with green sash to show she was with the medical service. Part of her duties were to tend to the civilians displaced from the war, regardless of the side, which were mainly women and children whose homes and families had been destroyed by the fighting.

In April 1864, Mary was attending to civilians when she accidently crossed into Confederate territory. She was captured, assumed to be a spy, and shipped off to Richmond to be held in Castle Thunder Prison (where Mary and Mollie Bell would also be held). Mary was released in a prison exchange in August after four months.

Mary with top hat and
Medal of Honor.

After the war, Mary made it back to Washington in time to be present at the execution of Mary Surratt for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. She received her Medal of Honor and hit the lecture circuit. Mary spent the rest of her life speaking and working alongside other suffragists to advance the cause of women’s rights. She became famous for her lectures dressed in full tuxedo with her Medal of Honor pinned proudly on her vest. Her colorful character, coupled with her legal argument for women’s suffrage, were at odds with the more mainstream members of the movement and she was often shunned.

Mary died February 21, 1919, the year before woman officially received the right to vote. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter posthumously restored her Medal of Honor and Dr. Mary Walker is again named as a recipient in the official listings. She remains the only woman in American history to receive the award.

Further Reading:
HIT by Mary Walker - read Mary's essays of reform issues of her time, including marriage, tobacco, and reglion.

To learn more about Mary Walker, Chick History recommends:
Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical, 1832-1919
A Woman of Honor: Dr. Mary E. Walker and the Civil War

Chickcast 9.3 - The Battle of Bull Run

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:28:40 PDT

The Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861 served as a deadly wake up call to Americans that the Civil War was going to be a bloody and long war. Follow the battle through the lives of Sarah Edmonds, Kady Brownell, and Rose Greenhow and witness the first battle of the U.S. Civil War unfold through the eyes of a field nurse, standard-bearer, and Confederate spy. This is the Battle of Bull Run as you've never heard it before.

Click here to play the Chickcast.

Subscribe via Itunes.

Download an mp3 or other formats here.

Further Resources:
Busted! Rose Greenhow Spy Documents at the National Archives

Kady Brownell, a Rhode Island Legend

Sarah Edmonds – Nurse and spy in the Union Army: The Adventures and Experiences of a woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battlefields

Rose Greenhow – My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington

Book Recommendations:
Wild Rose: The True Story of a Civil War Spy
They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War
The Mysterious Private Thompson: The Double Life of Sarah Emma Edmonds

Julia Dent-Grant: The Woman Behind America's Hero

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 04:58:28 PDT

Julia had cross-eyes
that she tried to correct
when her husband
became famous, but
she was too old for
the surgery.

Married August 22, 1848, Julia and Ulysses S. Grant, or “Ulys” as she called him, had a turbulent marriage that spanned almost four decades and countless hardships. By the end of the Civil War, Grant was the nation’s hero and darling of the war. In reality Grant was only good at two things: marriage and soldiering. In every other aspect of this life, he was a complete screw up and border line scrub. Had it not been for Julia’s unconditional care giving and her meticulous stewardship of their family reputation, he probably would have ended up working for his dad or dead in a ditch from alcohol poisoning.

Julia met, fell in love, and became engaged to Ulysses in less than six months. As soon as they were betrothed, the drama of being married to Ulysses S. Grant that would endure until his death began for Julia. Except for one occasion, the couple was separated for their four-year engagement due to the Mexican-American War. Julia’s family hated Grant because he was lowly career soldier. Grant’s dad hated Julia’s family because they were slave owners.

When Julia was eight months pregnant with their second child, Grant was ordered out to the Oregon Territory and Julia had to stay behind. During this period, Grant’s infamous drinking problem worsened and he resigned from the army in 1854. He also lost about $2,700 in a business deal to con artists and was accused of stealing $1,000 from a fellow soldier. Though he was found not guilty, he still had to pay the victim back. He returned to Julia broke.

Julia was determined to help Ulysses get his life back together. The next several years saw Ulysses indebted to Julia and her family’s charity. Julia’s father gave them 200 acres of land to farm for income, but Ulysses couldn’t seem to make anything of it. They lived in a house owned by Julia’s brother. Ulysses constantly borrowed money from Julia’s dad. He pawned stuff to buy Christmas presents. They moved to St. Louis and with the help of her cousin, Julia was able to get Ulysses a job as a rent collector in the city. Grant wasn’t able to hold that job either. When all this failed, they turned to Ulysses’s father for work and Grant became a clerk in his dad’s tannery. Despite all this, Julia kept cranking out babies and by 1860 they had four children to care for and feed.

Enter the Civil War. Grant petitioned to get his old job back but his requests were ignored. Finally, the Governor of Illinois put Grant in charge of a regiment of volunteers. Grant was able to get his foot back in the door and his army career eventually took off from here. You will recall such notable events as the Tennessee-Cumberland River Campaign (see entry on Anna Ella Carroll), the Battle of Vicksburg, and of course, who can forget, the surrender of General Robert E. Lee to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Julia swore she would never be away from her husband again. After the long engagement and the Oregon Territory debacle, she knew the trouble he could get into. Julia accompanied Grant whenever possible and was with him across Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia, and Washington, DC. Some have said that no other army wife traveled with her husband more than Julia Dent-Grant. It is generally accepted now, as it was 150 years ago, that it was so she could keep a watch on him and his drinking.

With unwavering support, Julia was able to keep her husband employed and sober. And most famously, Julia kept her husband from being assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

On April 14, 1865, Julia received a demanding request from an odd messenger. It was a double-date invitation from Mary Todd Lincoln to attend a play at Ford’s Theater. Julia was instinctually put off and informed the messenger that she and Ulysses were on their way out of town and had to leave Washington that day. To cover her tracks, she quickly sent word to Ulysses that she wanted to leave immediately. Bags were packed and they were out of the city by late afternoon. That night, Abraham Lincoln was shot and Grant had been the second target.

Writing in her memoirs, Julia recalls that she doesn’t know why she took “such a freak” that day but she knew she had to go home and that she feared trouble. The same odd messenger from the morning was also monitoring her at lunch with three other men, and then followed her and Grant’s carriage to the train station. In her memoirs, Julia identified these men that were stalking her all day as the “band of conspirators” and one of them as John Wilkes Booth.

Julia supported and defended her husband throughout his career, regardless of the slander. Whether it was his drinking, the blunder at the Battle of Shiloh, or the scandals that plagued his two-term Presidency, Julia defended her husband as an earnest, serious, and kind man. In her eyes, Grant could do no wrong, including one last trip down bankruptcy lane in 1884 when Grant invested all their money into a partnership suggested by his son that turned out to be a fraud.

Julia spent the rest of her seventeen years working to rebuild and sustain a loving memory of her husband. In 1897 she oversaw the dedication of Grant’s Tomb in New York City. Her PR efforts paid off so well that even Varina Davis, the wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, attended the dedication. When Julia died in 1902 she was placed alongside the love of her life.

Despite all the turmoil, at the heart of Ulysses and Julia was true love. In his last letter to Julia, Grant wrote “I bid you a final farewell, until we meet in another and, I trust, better world.” The closing paragraph of Julia’s memoirs sweetly responds, “the light of his glorious fame still reaches out to me,
falls upon me, and warms me.”

Further Resources

The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant)
Move Over Ulysses: Julia Grant Gold Coin Makes Debut
National Park Service - Ulysses S. Grant National Site (Don't be fooled, this was Julia's family land.)

Susie King Taylor: African-American Voice from the Battlefields

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 02:00:05 PDT

Susie King Taylor

1848-1912

“…so I now present these reminiscences to you, hoping they may prove of some interest, and show how much service and good we can do to each other, and what sacrifices we can make for our liberty and rights, and that there were ‘loyal women,’ as well as men, in those days, who did not fear shell or shot, who cared for the sick and dying; women who camped and fared as the boys did, and who are still caring for the comrades in their declining years.”

These are the opening words to Susie King Taylor’s memoirs “Reminiscences of my Life In Camp.” Susie’s memoirs are famous because they offer a rare glimpse into the world of the African-American regiments of the Civil War from a woman’s perspective. Her memoirs are filled with incredible, harrowing, and inspiring stories, including a pig, a capsized boat, and ramparts covered in human skulls.

At the age of fourteen, Susie was taken to St. Simon’s Island off the coast of Georgia to a refugee camp for African-Americans. From the moment she stepped on the island, she immediately became a volunteer for the army and became the island teacher for both children and adults. Susie had learned to read and write through underground schools and tutors, as it was illegal at the time to teach African-Americans to read and write. As a young child, she often wrote the passes for African-Americans in her town that they were required to carry with them to avoid arrest at night. If arrested, they were locked in jail until the morning when their owners came to pay their fines and released them.

Susie’s time on St. Simon’s refugee camp was brief, about six months. There were about 600 hundred men, women, and children on the island that was patrolled on the coast by Union gunboats. These island refugees were under constant threat of Southern renegades who would raid the islands to take back their “looted war property.” On one such occasion, Susie vividly describes several white men landing on the island on a boat for a raid and unsuccessfully chasing down some refugees. A party was put together to search for the invaders. When they were found hiding in bushes, a fight broke out with gunshots, and all told, three of the African-American refugees were killed. The Confederate men were able to hide out in the house of a sympathetic refugee and then escape the island on his boat. This man, Henry Capers, was exiled from the island for aiding the men.

Shortly after arriving on the island, a rumor spread that a truce was coming soon between the Union and the Confederates. Susie was told that Northern African-Americans would remain free and bonded African-Americans who chose to stay in the U.S. would work three days for their former owners and three days for themselves. If that generous offer wasn’t to their liking, they could go to the Liberia colony in Africa. Susie, who was already considered a freed slave, told her chaplain that she would be going to Liberia. After several months, the island residents realized this was not happening and the war was still on.

October 1862 rolled around and St. Simon’s Island was evacuated. Susie enlisted with the majority of the refugees in what was originally called the 1st South Carolina Infantry Volunteers, later the 33rd United States Colored Troops. The Captain of the regiment, C.T. Trowbridge, described it as the “first black regiment that ever bore arms in defense of freedom on the continent of America.” Susie was enlisted as a laundress, but in her own words said “my services were given at all times for the comfort of these men. I was on hand to assist whenever needed. I was enrolled as a company laundress, but I did very little of it, because I was always busy doing other things through camp, and was employed all the time doing something for the officers and comrades.”

Many African-American women enlisted as laundresses, cooks, and nurses in regiments of their husband and families. Susie’s husband was in her regiment, as well as several cousins and uncles. African-American soldiers did not receive full pay from the army until 1864, so the women took the paying jobs to support the traveling family during the war.

Susie’s three years in the army took her all over the low country region. She cleaned guns, went on picket lines, taught the men how to read and write, nursed wounded soldiers back to health, and soon became the camp mom. One day, Susie took a day trip to retrieve some items left behind and missed the ride back to camp. When she finally arrived back close to midnight she got a good heckling and was never allowed to live it down - her “boys” teasing her that she was a deserter.

While stationed on Cole Island, the regiment adopted a pig from the 74th Pennsylvania that became the pet of the camp. The drummer boys trained the pig to go out on morning marches with them and then wreak havoc during prayer services. In another strange encounter towards the end of the war, the mail of Susie’s regiments was mixed-up with the mail of a nearby Confederate regiment. Susie’s intrepid Captain crossed the river to Confederate soil and the two enemy armies peacefully exchanged their misdirected mail.

However, the realities of war didn’t escape Susie and she also wrote of the horrors of which she learned to become accustomed. At Camp Shaw, a traitor who had made his way into their barracks was captured and paraded down the city streets with his coffin. At the end of the march he was shot for all to see as a lesson. On occasion, Susie was able to visit Fort Wagner and would hike up to the ramparts with fellow camp members to watch gunner boats fire into Charleston. To make it up the ramparts, she would have to trample through piles of skulls that she would push to the side to make a clear path.

In late 1864, General William T. Sherman was on his sacking march to the sea and made it close to the camps where Susie was stationed. She asked for a transfer to Beaufort so she could be near the fighting and her “boys.” The last leg of the journey was a boat transfer from Hilton Head Island. But the boat never made it. Around 8:00 p.m., the boat capsized and Susie and the passengers on board were stranded in the water until midnight, clinging to stray boat parts adrift in the sea. They were finally rescued by nearby islanders, but a wounded soldier and a newborn baby had died during the ordeal.

Susie remained a Veteran through and through until her death. After the war and several failed attempts at running her own private school in Georgia, Susie settled in Boston. She kept in contact with many of her comrades and helped to organize the Boston Chapter of the Women’s Relief Corps. She conducted a census of all veterans of the “War of the Rebellion” residing in Massachusetts.

To grasp Susie’s full compassion and insightfulness, you must read her memoir. She lived well into Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction, and in a poignant prophecy, almost predicted the Civil Rights Movement. Reflecting on what life for Southern African-Americans was like post-war, she said “I may not live to see it, but the time is approaching when the South will again have cause to repent for the blood it has shed of innocent black men, for their blood cries out for vengeance.”

Further Resources

E-version of Susie’s Memories “Reminiscences of my Life in Camp”

Chickcast 9.2 - Mary Surratt, Accomplice in the Abraham Lincoln Assassination

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 10:57:08 PDT

Mary Surratt is often called the first women tried and executed by the US Government for her role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States and the first president assassinated in America. A devout Catholic with extreme convictions about religion and the “southern way of life," Surratt was a strong, protective, and unrelenting businesswoman and mother. And yet, her convictions of life ran so deep that she and one of her sons became entangled in espionage and the plot to kidnap and eventually assassinate Abraham Lincoln. The story of Mary and her involvement in the
plot is a fascinating exercise in contradiction.

Click here to play the chickcast.

Subscribe via Itunes.

Download an mp3 or other formats here.

Map of the Lincoln Assassinators Hornet's Nest

View Lincoln Assassinators Hornet's Nest in a larger map

Further Resources
New York Times archived article, July 7, 1865 - Description of Execution
Surratt House Museum, Clinton, MD
Online Exhibition on the Conspirators, Smithsonian American History Museum
Video Kate Clifford Larson on Mary Surratt at the US National Archives

Further Reading
The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln, by Kate Clifford Larson
Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy, by Elizabeth Steger Trindal

Mary and Mollie Bell: Johnny Rebels for the Confederacy

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:24:56 PDT

Castle Thunder Prison -- Richmond,
Virginia -- a warehouse on Tobacco
Row converted to a prison. Mary and
Mollie Bell were imprisoned here for
three weeks after being reported as
illegally enlisted women in the army.
Another famous prison, on the same
street was Libby Prison.

Despite the prohibition in both the Union and Confederate Armies for women combatants, hundreds of women enlisted to fight in the Civil War. It was easier than most people think. First, this was largely an all-volunteer war on both sides, comprised for the most part of young men, immigrants, and local militia. The top brass were the West Point men. Second, contrary to popular belief, physical entry-exams were not that thorough; nothing like what would come later during the World Wars of the 20th century.

Women would rush off to battle for the same reason men did. It was easy money, they were patriotic, or they were escaping a repressive home life. Many women also disguised themselves so they could accompany their husbands who enlisted. For Mary and Mollie Bell, spiting their uncle was a good enough reason as any to join the army.

Mary and Mollie Bell were cousins from Pulaski County, Virginia, who lived with their uncle. Around 1862, their uncle “went over to the Yankees” and in retaliation for what they saw as desertion, Mary and Mollie decided to join the Confederate Army. They disguised themselves as men and joined a Confederate cavalry. Which one they joined is unclear. What is interesting is that the Southern cavalry was made up of militiamen who were responsible for supplying their own horses, and whose prior experience consisted primarily of policing and arresting escaped plantation slaves. There is no evidence that Mary and Mollie were “slave catchers,” but by joining the cavalry it meant that they were experienced riders and owned, or had gotten a hold of, horses.

Mary enlisted under the name Bob Morgan and Mollie under the name Tom Parker. Soon afterwards, Mary and Mollie’s cavalry unit was taken by Union soldiers. For most women, it was at this point when they would have been discovered and many records show the “discovery” of women soldiers in POW camps. However, Mary and Mollie were able to remain undetected and soon General John H. Morgan and his cavalry rescued their outfit. Gen. Morgan would go on to fame by leading a cavalry into Ohio, which some claim is the farthest north any uniformed Confederate troops would get. Soon afterwards, Mary and Mollie transferred to the 36th Virginia Infantry and became foot soldiers

For the next two years, Mary and Mollie fought alongside their male counterparts. According to the Richmond Dispatch, they “were acknowledged by all the soldiers with whom they were associated to be valiant soldiers, having never been known to straggle or shirk duty.” Mollie was even promoted to the rank of Corporal during her years of service. Mary and Mollie knew they were hot stuff, rumoring to have said “that if all the women of the Confederacy were as patriotick [sic] as they, the country would have been free long ago.”

To stay hidden for so long, Mary and Mollie did what many women fighting in disguise did, they let a senior officer in on it. In a tight bind, a senior officer could help a woman from being discovered by covering for her. This was especially effective if the woman was injured in battle and was sent to the field surgeon for treatment that might require undressing.

The last six months of their service saw Mary and Mollie in the thick of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864, commanded by Gen. Jubal Early. This campaign would be the Confederate’s last attempt to invade the North. Many cite the Union’s victory over Gen. Early, coupled with the sacking of Atlanta by Gen. Sherman, as the reason Lincoln was re-elected and signaled the beginning of the end for the Confederates. These valley battles were a pretty big deal and Mary and Mollie were there for the whole thing. The last one, the Battle of Cedar Creek, would also be the beginning of the end for their military careers.

General J. Early, the man
who arrested Mary and
Mollie Bell. After the war,
he would flee to Mexico
and later Canada, involving
himself in the "Lost Cause,"
the romantic retelling of
the Civil War that used
Arthurian and Chivalric
traditions to politically
reposition the South.

The Captain that Mary and Mollie had confided in to help keep their identities under wraps was captured at Cedar Creek. Mary and Mollie then made a bad decision, they told a Lieutenant that was second in command. That Lieutenant betrayed their confidence and reported their illegal enlistment to Gen. Early, probably to either avoid punishment himself for aiding them or to get a promotion. Gen. Early’s reaction was typical of a high-ranking officer who had been informed there were women in his ranks. He asserted that there was no way they could have been serving for two years, as women were weaker, and that they were obviously “camp followers.” Camp followers, as they were called, were the groupies that followed regiments from camp to camp as companions to soldiers and the prostitutes looking for work.

Mary and Mollie, like most women discovered, were arrested. They were sent to Castle Thunder Prison in Richmond, Virginia. They were incarcerated, in the same prison as deserters, spies, and Unions POWs, and interrogated for three weeks. If found guilty, their punishment would be severe, because most camp followers were also suspected of being spies who had infiltrated the barracks. The reports from the Richmond Dispatch and Richmond Examiner published during these three weeks are the contemporary sources used to reconstruct their story. The Examiner went so far as to suggest that the mere “unclean presence” of these two women in Gen. Early’s army was what caused his defeat in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Ouch.

In late November 1864, Mary and Mollie were released from Castle Thunder. No charges would be brought against them. They were no longer enlisted men, and were sent back to their home in Southwest Virginia, in the same uniforms they had been arrested in. The Examiner described it as “sending home the petticoat soldiers.”

Further Reading:

They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War

Book Giveaway Contest: Topsy Turvy-How the Civil War Turned the World Upside Down for Southern Children

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:00:24 PDT

From the inside flap: In Topsy-Turvy, Anya Jabour brings into sharp relief how gender, race, slavery, and status shaped the lives of children in the American South before, during, and after the Civil War. She argues persuasively that the identities children developed in the antebellum era determined their responses to the upheavals of the war years and their lives afterward. Even as Topsy-Turvy presents the Civil War as a major turning point in Southern children’s lives, it also illuminates the interplay between continuity and changes in the history of the American South. The war may have been a national tragedy, but it had an especially devastating effect on Southern soldiers, civilians, and communities. Because the conflict was fought largely on Southern soil, parts of the regions became a “permanent landscape of war,” and children in the Confederacy thus experienced the struggle in an especially profound and personal way.

How to Enter and Contest Rules: One randomly selected Facebook Fan will receive a free copy of this book. Simply visit and Like the Chick History Facebook Page for your chance to win. Drawing will be held August 31st, and I will contact the winer by sending out a Facebook Update. The winner will have one week to contact Chick History via email to claim their prize. After that, a second name will be drawn and so on and so forth. Good luck everyone!

Anna Ella Caroll: Savior of the Union or Fraud?

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 07:43:28 PDT

Anna Ella Carroll

(1815-1894)

Things were not looking good for the Union the first year of the war. True, the blockade along the Eastern seaboard was starving out Southern troops in need of supplies and weapons, but the majority of the battles in the first months did not strategically give either side the upper hand. Until the Battle of Bull Run happened, or the Battle of Manassas if you are a “sesech,” as Kentuckian Josie from the Civil War Diaries Twitter Project calls Southern secessionists. This major victory for the Confederate States of America in July 1861 finally served as a wake up call, to both sides, that this war was serious, was deadly, and was going to last a while.

The Union was going to need to act swiftly and smartly in order to regroup and regain a stronghold on the South. Plans were underway to figure out how to invade the Confederate Country from what was known as the Western Theatre, states including, and west of, Tennessee and Georgia. In 1862, a campaign was put together that instantly gave the Union two solid victories, and opened up the door for all future campaigns to sweep the South and finally come around to Richmond. This was known as the Tennessee-Cumberland River Campaign. And it was devised by a woman. Or was it?

Anna Ella Caroll was age 45 when South Carolina issued its “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union” in December 1860. Born in Maryland, she was the daughter of a governor, granddaughter of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the family for which Carroll County takes it name. She was the eldest child of eight and grew up on a Tobacco plantation with slaves. Her family was one the most educated and influential families of Maryland and she grew up steeped in politics and the law. At an early age, she was already writing political and legal essays for newspaper submission under a pseudonym, conscious of her age and gender.

Anna had a great political mind, was extremely intelligent, but also was a little, what’s the word…bigoted. Her early writings and pamphlets were written during her involvement with the Know Nothing party. One of her pamphlets was “The Great American Battle, or The Contest Between Christianity and Political Romanism.” It was a huge bash on the Roman Catholic Church, a popular pastime of the time. In the later war years, she would draft proposals supporting emancipation but suggesting establishing a colony in Belize for African-Americans rather than integrating them into American society. By the by, Lincoln was all for colonization in his early political career.

Where we see Anna shine is in her capacity as advisor and confident of Maryland Governor Thomas H. Hicks. Any Marylander will be the first to tell you how crucial a role that state played in the Civil War. If Maryland seceded, the American Capital would be surrounded by Confederate states and you can only imagine how things would have turned out then. Maryland was a slave-holding state and many legislators were having a hard time coming down one side or the other on the issue of secession, including the Governor. Anna constantly and diplomatically advised the Governor not to secede and to do all that he could to preserve the Union. Scholars credit her steady and calm advice to the Governor during the early years of the war has having a major impact on Maryland not seceding. That and the martial law, of course.

As the war progressed, Lincoln started getting slammed for some of his decisions. Anna, pro-Union and already advising top Washington officials at this point in her career, wrote several pamphlets laying out the legal and constitutional authority a sitting President possessed to take such action as a Commander-in-Chief during a war.

In the fall of 1861, Anna and military agent Lemuel Dale Evans went to St. Louis, Missouri to access the feasibility of the Union plan to use the Mississippi River to gain access to the South. It was on this trip that Anna insists she came up with the idea to switch to the Tennessee-Cumberland river system as the point of entry instead of the well-defended Mississippi River. However, lots of people started taking credit for it. General Ulysses S. Grant, Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott, and Anna all wanted a piece of that pie.

Anna’s reaching into the executive office didn’t stop there. Advising Lincoln on the issue of slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation, she counseled him on the legalities of what he was about to do. She told him that as Commander-in-Chief he could issue the proclamation during the war and it would become law, but only during the war. If he wanted emancipation to be permanent, he would have to make an amendment to the constitution. This was also the time she was hot for the whole Belize colony idea too. In the famous painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter from 1864, there is an empty chair that many believe was meant to represent Anna, the invisible member of Lincoln’s cabinet.

First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln
by Francis Bicknell Carpenter (1830 - 1900)
Oil on canvas, 1864
Collection of the United States Senate

After Lincoln died, the tide of public opinion turned fast on Anna. Everyone thought she was making the whole thing up about the Tennessee-Cumberland River Campaign, and she never received formal credit for it, though she petitioned Congress for years. She was also in debt to publishers for all those pamphlets she was writing and couldn’t get the government to pay her back. A rumor even spread around Washington that she had tried to extort $5,000 out of Lincoln to pay her debts. She eventually got a pension of $50.00 a month for her “service to the country.”

There is evidence that comes down on both sides for Anna. The biggest hurdle is that the only original documents showing Anna thought of the Tennessee-Cumberland River Plan are from Anna. So it has been very easy for history to brush aside this story. Just how much she devised and relayed the plan to Washington, and at what point they had already started the campaign, will remain a mystery for some time, as scholars are still feverishly researching archives and collections for more evidence.

However, Anna’s lobbying efforts in her home state of Maryland and having the ear of a Governor whose state was the lynchpin in the secession struggle are without question an amazing contribution to the Civil War. As the teetering Governor said himself to Anna in 1862:

When all was dark and dreadful in Maryland’s future, when the waves of secession were beating down furiously upon your frail executive, borne down with private as well as public grief, you stood nobly by and watched the storm and skillfully helped to wok the ship, until, thank God, helmsman and crew were safe in port.

Further Resources:

Was Anna Ella Carroll the forgotten heroine of the Civil War?

The Woman Who Saved the Union?

Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame Biography of Anna Carroll

Anna Carroll: Exaggerated Heroine?

Chickcast 9.1 - Meet the Ladies of the Civil War Diaries Twitter Project

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:59:59 PDT

Two Southern aristocrats, two teenagers from Kentucky, a nurse, a reformer, and a spy. These are the women from the Civil War Diaries Twitter Project, whose personal accounts of the US Civil War are tweeted 150 years after the day they were written. Meet the ladies and witness the U.S Civil War unfold through the eyes of seven women on twitter by following @civilwardiaries.

Click here to play the chickcast.
Subscribe via Itunes.
Download an mp3 or other formats here.

Follow @CivilWarDiaries on Twitter.

Further Resources:

Mary Chesnut - Queen Bee of the Confederacy
Elizabeth Van Lew - An Unlikely Union Spy
The Diary of a Civil War Nurse Online Exhibition

Chick News

Women warriors may have battled in ancient Cambodia

Maine town leaders vote: Alcohol Mary Road to stay

Ossuary Belonging to a Daughter of the Caiaphas Family of High Priests Discovered

Stirling Castle's Amazon warrior revealed

Recently Released Books:

Get Ready for US Civil War Month at Chick History!

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:21:28 PDT

Image courtesy of AASLH

August is Civil War month at Chick History. What? Women in the Civil War, you say? Oh, yes.

Sometime ago, somebody estimated that between 300-400 women fought in the Civil War. That number has never been confirmed, but it has also never been challenged. And, that does not include all the work done by women in the role of volunteers, nurses, aides, and advisors, as well as home front and civilian efforts.

For the entire month of August, Chick History is exploring women in the US Civil War, from biographies to cultural studies. Every Monday, Chick History will feature a new blog post on a woman from the Civil War. There will also be some great podcast programming scheduled for August:

And finally, for Civil War Month, Chick History will have its first book give away contest. One randomly selected Facebook Fan will receive a free copy of Topsy-Turvy: How the Civil War Turned the World Upside Down for Southern Children.

Who says war is just for men? Not this chick.

Blog Entries:

How Would Amelia Earhart Explain Flying?

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:34:18 PST

Ever wonder what historical figures sounded like? Ever wonder how hilarious it would sound in 2011 to hear someone explain how flying worked when it first come out? Is that last one just me?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then definitely check out these two fantastic recordings of Amelia Earhart doing just that. Keep in mind, of course, that during her time flying was a novelty and not the popular form of transportation it is today. The take away is the true visionary she was -- listen to her proclaim that women have not yet taken full advantage of air travel.

Clip One

Clip Two

I do have to say, in the second clip, Amelia does a great impression of Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn as played in The Aviator.

These recordings are from the amazing website Old Radio World which archives radio shows from "The Golden Age of Radio." You can find Amelia, and many more, in their Voices From History Collection. I think you know where you can find me this weekend.

Chick Cast Episode #8 - Selene, the Forgotten Daughter of Cleopatra

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:26:15 PST

Cleopatra Selene, often referred to as Cleopatra VIII or simply Selene, was the only daughter of Cleopatra and Marc Antony. Her life is often overshadowed by her mother’s celebrity. However, after the famous deaths of her parents and the annexation of Egypt into Rome, Selene would go on to be the only surviving child of Cleopatra to live well into adulthood and fashion a successful political career in the new Roman Empire with Augustus Caesar at it’s helm. Historical fiction author Stephanie Dray joins the panel in this companion piece to the Cleopatra Series, which offers a fascinating comparison between mother and daughter.

Play the file in a new window.
Download the Audio File.
Subscribe through iTunes.
Link to the Cleopatra Series.

Selene Slideshow

Chick News
Girl 'murdered' by Roman soldiers in north Kent
Egyptian Princess Needed Bypass Surgery, Mummy Study Shows
Bulgarian Archaeologists Uncover Sanctuary of Greek Goddess Demeter
CT scans of Egyptian mummy help Vermont solve crimes

Selene Bibliography
The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene. Duane W. Roller. Routledge: 2003

How to reach Stephanie Dray
www.stephaniedray.com
@stephaniehdray
Facebook Page

Another High Priestess of Nanna Created World's First Museum

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:46:59 PDT

In April I wrote about Enheduanna, the world’s first author. She was the High Priestess of Nanna and was a prolific writer. I just came across an article on another High Priestess of Nanna -- Ennigaldi. She lived about seventeen-hundred years after Enheduanna but had the same job in the city of Ur, around 550 BCE. She was the head of the church and administrator of the state school, which was for young priestesses. Much of her religious time would have been spent in a private temple restricted to female-use only on the grounds of the Great Ziggurat of Ur.

Ennigaldi's museum with the Great Ziggurat in the background.

But there's more! She also was the curator for the world's first museum. Ennigaldi was in charge of a collection of artifacts that had labels and was in association with the university. She collected antiquities from the Mesopotamian regions and it is believed she used these in an educational capacity as part of the temple school. They also think she may have excavated them too, which makes her and her father some of the world’s first archaeologists. The objects found in her museum range from kudurrus (a type of Babylonian land deed), to statues, to chunks of old buildings.

This clay cylinder found at the site is thought to be the world's first museum label. It is written in three languages and does not adhere to modern guidelines of two hundred words per label.

I am no specialist of the time period, but I gotta say that it looks like the job to have was the High Priestess of Nanna. Ennigaldi and Enheduanna are two examples of this exalted position in which major cultural firsts came from women.

Further Resources:
The story behind the world’s oldest museum
Enheduanna: High Priestess and World’s First Author

Witness the U.S Civil War Unfold Through the Eyes of Seven Women

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:18:12 PDT

@CivilWarDiaries

The Civil War Diaries is a Twitter Project by Chick History. The Sesquicentennial Commemoration for the U.S. Civil War has begun, and encompasses the time period between 1861-1865. All across the United States organizations, museums, and associations are creating incredible and thought-provoking programs to commemorate, explore, and teach this difficult time period in America’s history. This five-year effort will not be a celebration, it is intended to commemorate, reflect, and understand and learn from the events leading up to, during, and after the Civil War.

For the CW 150, Chick History has created the @CivilWarDiaries, a twitter account that will tweet diary entries of selected woman who kept personal records of their experiences during the war. They will all be under this one account, so we can see multiple viewpoints of the war unfold at the same time and compare these women’s stories.

>> Read More

Where Did Hillary and Audrey Go? Writing Women Out of History

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 10 May 2011 21:42:20 PDT

This altered image from the

Der Tzitung newspaper removed

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

and Director of Counterterrorism

Audrey Tomason.

How do you write someone out of history? It's easy. Just don't mention them. Or just photoshop them out of the picture.

By now, most of America, if not the world, has seen the iconic photograph of the Osama bin Laden mission from the White House Situation Room. The image, released by the White House, shows President Barack Obama and his national security team and advisors, including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

An iconic photograph can last a lifetime. From the U.S. soldiers raising the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima to the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong officer, images leave a lasting impression of the moments that make up history. Most importantly, they document the events and people present for historical record.

>> Click here to read the full Huffington Post article.

Enheduanna: High Priestess and World’s First Author

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:30:59 PDT

This disk shows Enheduanna, third
from the right, assisted by male
attendants in a ritual. To show her
importance, she is the largest
person in the scene, a common
practice to indicate hierarchy.

Just in time for the close of National Poetry Month in the U.S. is this gem of a find, Enheduanna, the first poet known by name. Enheduanna lived 4,300 years ago (c. 2285-2250 BCE) and was the daughter of King Sargon of Akkad. She was so prolific and had such longevity -- over 50 hymns that were followed for over 500 years -- that she is often called the Shakespeare of Sumerian Literature. In actuality, shouldn’t he be called the Enheduanna of Tudor Literature?

Enheduanna was the High Priestess of Nanna, the moon god. That doesn’t sound like a big deal to us now, but back then this was the most important position to have. Before the monotheistic religions we are familiar with today -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- the world revolved around nature, the sacred feminine, and the teachings and rituals of women in the temple. These intricate and elaborate rituals were believed to control everything from birth, to death, to the harvest, to victory in war.

In her official capacity, Enheduanna would have acted as priestess, diplomat, and politician. Her father, Sargon, is famous for combining the city-states of Akkad and Sumer into one, multi-ethnic empire known as the Akkadian Empire. Some consider this one of the first empires in world history, although a couple other people have claim to that title. Nevertheless, to organize and maintain such a vast network, dad was going to need some help. While he was in charge of the secular, religion and therefore supreme authority were still in the female realm. And this is where Enheduanna proved indispensable.

As High Priestess, she was in charge of writing all the religious doctrine. To solidify power under her family’s rule, she combined the worship of all local deities into the worship of the Sumerian goddess known as Inanna. According to some text, Inanna was the daughter of Nanna, and therefore Enheduanna positioned herself as the final authority over religious matters (since she was the High Priestess of Nanna). Many credit this move with solidifying the Akkadian empire and giving her father control over the city Ur in Sumer.

A second great feat of Enheduanna was a series of poems she composed known as the “Sumerian Temple Hymns.” They are a collection of hymns of varying length describing the different temples of the empire, which city they were in, and which deity was worshiped there. They are the first known example of a systematic theology. Even Enheduanna knew they were a big deal, because in the inscription she says herself “that which has been created here no one has created before.”

All is going well for Enheduanna under her father’s reign. When he dies and her brother Rimush assumes the throne, things go a little south. There is a revolt and a guy named Lugalanne tries to become priest of the Temple and ousts Enheduanna from her stately position. Proving again that the pen is mightier than the sword, Enheduanna composes her greatest poem “The Exaltation of Inanna.” In this work, the most completely translated of all her works, she calls forth and praises the supreme power of Inanna, recounts her strife with Lugalanne in first person, and then comes out victorious and is restored to her position as High Priestess.

The poem has some major girl power going on. To sum it up, Inanna, and by extension Enheduanna, is triumphant because of the power of the female to be both destructor and creator at the same time -- the mother goddess who is responsible for all life and death and its prosperity. There is no way a man can be a priest for a temple that revolves around the sacred feminine. Makes sense to me.

This image of a tablet is
one of the many copies of
Enheduanna's most famous
poems "The Exaltation
of Innana."

Before Enheduanna, which was her priestess name not her birth name (which we don’t know), Sumerian writing was anonymous. She is the first person we know of to attach her name to her writings, which also makes her the first author. Most scholars believe this is because she may have been the first writer of royal lineage and entitled to reveal herself in her writings. Up until now, most writings that survive are examples of bookkeeping and inventory, or the writings were commissioned and there was no sense of ownership. And frankly, it is 2300 BCE people. This is the beginning of writing and someone had to do it first.

Enheduanna’s scripture and poems were continuously copied and studied by her followers. In fact, “The Exaltation of Inanna” may be the most famous Sumerian work of literature in existence due to the amount of copies that exist. Examination of her life and work begs for comparison to later religious doctrine and symbols. One passage exclaims that Inanna’s wrath “is a devastating flood which no one can withstand.” In another, Enheduanna recounts her expulsion from the temple and that Lugalanne “made me fly like a swallow from the window.” And after her death, she was deified by her followers. Sound familiar?

List of Enheduanna’s works that we attribute to her, with a link to an online translation if available:

The Sumerian Temple Hymns
The Exaltation of Inanna
In-nin Sa-gur-ra (Stout-hearted Lady)
Inanna and Ebih
Hymn of Praise to Ekishnugal and Nanna
Hymn of Praise of Enheduanna

Further Resources:

Center for Digital Discourse Website for Enheduanna

Enheduanna Online Research Pages

Enheduanna Research Bibliography

Samuel N. Kramer, Diane Wolkstein. Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth. 1983. 

Betty De Shong Meador. Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna. 2001.  (I skimmed this one, and there is some hardcore polytheism/matriarch vs. monotheism/patriarchy stuff going on that looks amazing!)

How do you think Cleopatra Died?

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:12:28 PDT

So, what do you think? How did Cleopatra die?

This coin, minted by Octavian following his victory over Cleopatra and the annexation of Egypt into Rome, shows the profile of the future emperor on the left and an alligator symbolizing Egypt on the right. The Latin inscription reads "Egypt captured."

In the Chick Cast series on Cleopatra, we discussed several theories surrounding her death: suicide, murder, or something else. What do you think?

Check out the Chick Cast series, learn what type of person Cleopatra was, and decide for yourself.
Then, go to the Chick History Facebook Page.
Finally, look for the coin in the Photos and leave a comment.

Chick History would love to hear if you agree or disagree with the theories presented in the podcast, or if you have any other theories to present.

If you want to cheat, eh-hem, you can skip to Part 3. But Parts 1 and 2 include lots of juicy stuff too, like how many siblings' death she was responsible for to secure her throne; and if she used birth control or not with Caesar and Marc Antony. I mean, can you stand it!?

I will read a selection of comments in an upcoming podcast.

Chick Cast Episode #7 - Cleopatra Part 3

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:30:45 PST

In Part 3 of Cleopatra, the final installment in the Chick Cast series, we discuss the infamous Battle of Actium where Cleopatra and Antony are presumed to abandon their troops; the year-long negotiations between the pair and Octavian following the battle; and the controversial deaths of the two in Egypt.

Click here to open in a new window
Subscribe via iTunes

Link to Cleopatra Part 1
Link to Cleopatra Part 2

Chick Cast Episode #6 - Cleopatra Part 2

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:30:11 PST

Part 2 of the Cleopatra Chick Cast series covers the fall out and repercussions of the Caesar assassination, and the development of the relationship between Cleopatra and Marcy Antony that would become such a threat to Octavian that he would declare War on Cleopatra.

Click here to open in a new window

Subscribe via iTunes

Link to Cleopatra Part 1
Link to Cleopatra Part 3

Chick Cast Episode #5 - Cleopatra Part 1

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:28:34 PST

Cleopatra was the last Monarch of Egypt before the kingdom was annexed into the Roman Empire. Separating the woman from the myth has been one of the greatest mysteries in historical and literary traditions. In part one of a three-part series on her life, we cover what it means to be Cleopatra, her rise to the throne, and her alliance with Julius Caesar.

Link to Cleopatra Part 2
Link to Cleopatra Part 3

Click here to open in a new window
Subscribe via iTunes

Chick News
Pompeii Couple Reunited in Marble Inscription
Wart Detected on Egyptian Queen Beauty
Fake statue Amarna Princess returns to Bolton Museum
Exciting Results Expected for Alma-Tadema Masterpiece

Cleopatra Bibliography & Documentary
Cleopatra: A Life. Stacy Schiff. Little, Brown and Company: 2010
Cleopatra and Antony: Power, Love, and Politics in the Ancient World. Diana Preston. Walker & Company: 2010
Cleopatra - Portrait of a Killer. Documentary on archaeological finds in Turkey of the presumed tomb of Arsinoe, the sister of Cleopatra. You can find it on youtube.

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop: The Profile Image in Context

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:59:00 PDT

Today, we have a guest post by Melissa Mannon, archivist and fellow history lover. She originally published the post January 25, 2011 on her website ArchivesInfo. I couldn't decide what I loved more about the post, that it was an interesting topic or that Melissa does historical research on her personal purchases. It goes to show you how history is all around you, you just have to look closely. A chick after my own heart. Everyone should now go dig out all their grandparents things and look to see if you have any. More info about Melissa and her work follows the post.

-----

While at the antique shop today, I found a few lovely profile images of women from the turn of the century. This is a pose that we rarely see in portraiture today and I began wondering about the history of it. I found Patricia Simon's fascinating web site with excerpts from her article "Women in Frames" that offers an interesting theory about the origin of women in this pose. Prior to the Renaissance, according to Simon, profile portraiture was reserved for men. Perhaps, I think because prior to this time, few women were considered to be important enough to have their visage preserved in high art (or any other art for that matter.) A few articles I've read have said that the profile grew out of classical imagery, as seen on Roman coins. Men with prominent noses and strong jawlines, by the mid-15th century, were replaced by women in profile.

And here is where it gets most interesting for me...Simon theorizes that this format enhanced the idea of women as objects of beauty. They were shown with accepted modesty, including eyes looking away from the viewer and sometimes downcast. Simon claims that this pose also allowed Renaissance women to show off their finery without abashment, showing them as fine representatives of high culture and role models for their sex. This style was used to the same effect in the Victorian era, but can you picture Isabella Stewart Gardner accepting that kind of treatment? Consider the way she stares at you in her well-known painted image by John Singer Sargent -- almost daring you to make a comment about her femininity that she so proudly displays with her plunging neckline and tight bodice. This dichotomy in imagery reveals the struggle for women to gain equal footing with men. This is evidenced in their historical fight for suffrage and equal rights, which rose to prominence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when my two antique shop portraits were taken.

By the time the camera came around, it seems that the profile was just one of the standard poses in a photographer's arsenal. In addition to the profile, I found a frontal view of the woman in lace. Yet the profile pose of the woman (and also of the girl below) are particularly striking. They appear almost porcelain-like. Their fine features are emphasized by this view from the side that also shows off the classic curls in their hair. They are virtuous female Victorians, perhaps stereotyped as such in these images.

I wonder why profiles are not popular today, but I have a theory. When someone happens to capture my image in profile, I tend to dislike it. I do not picture myself as my profile. I want to stare at the world head on. I want the viewer to recognize me and to see into my eyes. I want to appear strong and friendly. I do not want to be shrinking, lost or untouchable - like porcelain. Has modernity chased away a women's soft decorum and is this represented in our imagery? Profile images invite us to consider the context in which they were taken. Twenty first century images represent and document the modern woman and not the ideal woman of more than a century ago. Images such as these can give us remarkable insight into changes in our society and even a pose can tell us quite a bit.

To view the original posting, click here.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editors note: After reading the entry and Melissa's call out to Isabella Stewart Gardner's portrait, I also thought of the other SCANDALOUS portrait of Madam X (ex-pat Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau) by Sargent. This painting sent shock-waves through Victorian polite society when it debuted at the 1884 Paris Salon. Sargent boldly combines the Profile with the Plunging Neckline...brilliant. This might as well have been the cover of Playboy back then.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the author:

Melissa Mannon is an archivist, cultural heritage consultant, and information expert with twenty years of experience promoting collaboration and professionalism among museums, libraries, historical societies, town governments, and private collections. She is the principal consultant of ArchivesInfo. ArchivesInfo's mission is to promote the security of cultural knowledge, memory, and identity. The blog posts focus on archives, historical knowledge and information literacy.

For more information about archives, services, and for newsletters written before 2010, please visit the ArchivesInfo official web site.

You can find ArchivesInfo on Facebook

You can follow ArchivesInfo on Twitter: @archivesinfo

Life Magazine Slideshow of Rarely Seen Eva Braun Photos

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:37:00 PST

This 1940 photo of Braun appears
to show her nude behind the
umbrella, possibly sunbathing.

Life recently published this slideshow of photographs of Eva Braun, mistress of Adolf Hitler. The two met when she was a teenage model, and then began a long-term affair a couple of years after. Most of the general public did not know of their relationship until after the war, when the two were found dead by suicide on April 30, 1945. The day before, they married in a civil ceremony. Braun had attempted suicide two times in her life before this, once at the age of twenty and the other at the age of twenty-three. She was thirty-three when she committed suicide with Adolf Hitler; he was fifty-six.

The photographs offer a fascinating glimpse into her life, from her childhood into the years she was the mistress of Hitler with her own villa. You can see her indulging in some of the vices Hitler disapproved of -- smoking, wearing make-up, and nude sunbathing. There is also a disarming photo of Eva dressed up in "blackface" as American actor Al Jolson at a party. The images can't help but make one take pause and consider the war raging outside these scenes of birthday parties, relaxing afternoons, and private moments.

Update: There is some subjective debate going on about Life's choice of the words rare, rarely seen, and uncovered when describing this slideshow. The majority of the photos have been reproduced in other publications and are available at the National Archives. For Chick History, that does not change the fact that these photos document Eva Braun and the time period, and you'll see I chose to focus on the photos themselves rather than the provenance. Just want to make that clear, thanks!

10 Reasons We Need International Women's Day to Help Raise Awareness

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:11:50 PST


International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! Today, March 8th, is the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. Click on the logo to the right to go to the website and learn more about this day and events going on around the world.

For the celebration, I wrote a piece for Huffington Post.

Extract:

Women's Studies pioneer Gerda Lerner once said, "Women's history is the primary tool for women's emancipation." Women must educate themselves in order to empower themselves. We need heroes who came before us to inspire us to take action today.

Click here for the full article: 10 Reasons We Need International Women's Day to Help Raise Awareness

Black History Month Part 3: Women in a Man’s World

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:57:38 PST

The last installment of Chick History’s Black History Month Series profiles two women who made it in a man’s world. Mary Fields and Madam C.J. Walker are two women who not only made their own way on their own terms, they made it in two places history traditionally reserves for men: the rough and tumble American West and the world of business.

STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS (born c. 1832 – d. 1914)

At 6 feet, 200 pounds,
Mary Fields was
born to be an
American legend.

A wisecracking, cigar-smoking, pistol-toting, whiskey-drinking rough neck who dressed like a man and carried the mail in Montana. This was Mary Fields, a.k.a Stagecoach Mary. She was born a slave in either 1832 or 1833 in Tennessee. She was six-feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds. Not much of her early life is known (project!), but some sources say that she was a house servant and playmate for a young girl in the family who owned her. After Emancipation, Mary made her way to Toledo, Ohio, in 1878 to reunite with someone from her childhood (possibly the aforementioned daughter) who was now Mother Amadeus in the Ursuline Convent. She worked for the Sisters at the convent as a caretaker and groundskeeper.

In 1884, at the age of 52, she traveled to the Montana Territory, following behind Mother Amadeus and the Ursuline Convent Mission. During this period of westward expansion, many convents established western missions to educate and convert the Native American population. The Ursuline Convent set up St. Peter’s Mission, a boarding school for Native Americans outside of Cascade, and Mary worked there for a time. After the convent, Mary did a series of odd jobs, including trying to run a couple of restaurants that never made it off the ground because she kept giving away free meals to children and the poor.

In 1895, Mary was commissioned by the Postal Service to carry out a Star Route. These were postal routes in unpopulated areas where the USPS didn’t have official routes. They were called Star Routes after the logo “* * *” from the “celerity, certainty, and security” tagline. She was 63-years-old and the first African-American woman to work a postal route, and this is where she got her name Stagecoach Mary.

Legends abound on Mary and her exploits out west. She is reported to have gotten into a duel with a man over unfair wages. When a patron didn’t pay his laundry bill, she punched him in the face and knocked him out. She supposedly guarded a stagecoach of supplies for the Mission all through the night from a pack of wolves. In Cascade, they say she was the only woman the mayor allowed to drink inside the saloon. When she first began working for the Ursuline Sisters in Toledo and they asked her if she needed anything, she is reported to have said “Yes, a good cigar and a drink.”

Like Davy Crockett and Billy the Kid, separating historical memory from historical record is difficult with Mary, as she is one of those larger than life personalities that history loves to glamorize. African-American women in the West are often overlooked and a supposed rarity. Contradictory sketches of her biography aside, Mary was a black woman making her way West for a new life as so many Americans did during this period.

Further Resources:

Smithsonian National Postal Museum Online Exhibition "Women in the US Postal Service"
History of Women Mail Carriers at the USPS

“Stagecoach Mary Broke Barriers of Race, Gender.” By JC Reindl. Blade Newspaper, Toledo, Ohio. February 8, 2010.

MADAM C.J. WALKER (1867-1919)

Business Empress
Madam C.J. Walker
was one of the first
self-made, women
millionaires in America.

Madam C.J. Walker is a quintessential rags-to-riches story and one of the first self-made American businesswomen. Madam Walker was born Sarah Breedlove to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation. She picked cotton instead of going to school. Orphaned at the age of 6, married at the age of 14, mother at the age of 17, widowed at the age of 20, millionaire at the age of 57, Madam Walker’s life is a true Cinderella story.

After her first husband’s death (she would marry three times in her life), Madam Walker moved to St. Louis to be with family. During her twenties and thirties she experienced hair loss, and began experimenting with home remedies. She used them on herself, friends, and neighbors, and soon word got out. Miraculously, they were reported to work and became a sensation. Whether you believe in hair-loss recovery is beside the point. What Madam Walker did with her business is the real story here.

At the beginning of the 1900s in American history, the China-doll image of the Victorian Age was on its way out. It was replaced by the glamorous Hollywood starlet image and the cosmetic industry was able to capitalize on this. Madam Walker, with incredible business instincts, created her “Walker Products” empire (Avon was still mostly a perfume company at this time). In a genius branding move, she changed her name to Madam C.J. Walker, taking the initials and surname of her third husband Charles Joseph Walker.

Walker Products was a full line of hair-care products for African-American women, from scalp treatments to hair straightening techniques (but she was not the inventor of the hair relaxer cream). To manufacture her products, she had a base in Indianapolis, the largest industrial city at the time in America. To sell her products, she had a legion of “Walker Agents” who were trained in Walker’s beauty schools and sold her products internationally. She taught courses for other black woman to learn how to open and run successful businesses, and she was a major philanthropist in the anti-lynching movement of the early 1900s.

Her business was so successful that she purchased land in the upscale New York suburban village of Irvington and built an estate called the Villa Lewaro. You know you’ve hit the big time when your house is so big it gets its own name in lieu of a street address. She died at the age of 57, the first black woman millionaire and one of the first self-made women millionaires.

Avon Calling and Tupperware Party jokes aside, what Madam Walker did was incredible. With her Walker Products, she was able to show that a woman could create her own business (not inherit her father’s or husband’s business) and that the African-American market was a viable marketing sector for American businesses.

Further resources:

Madame C.J. Walker Website

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Link to Black History Month Part 1: Women Shaping America

Link to Black History Month Part 2: Women Finding Their Own Voice

Black History Month Part 2: Women Finding Their Own Voice

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:43:10 PST

Despite institutionalized slavery and laws forbidding and restricting African-Americans from full participation in society, women were able to find ways to take their own agency. For women at the time, black or white, there was limited opportunity to contribute, besides dinner. Phillis Wheatley and Old Elizabeth are two examples of black women who found and expressed their own voice. Phillis Wheatley would become the first published black women, who impressed the Founding Fathers and had a lasting impact on Black literature. Old Elizabeth would immerse herself in religion, like so many women did during the time, to gain a voice in and access to a community.

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (c. 1753 – 1784)

Image of Phillis Wheatley,
taken from the frontispiece
of her book of poems.

Phillis Wheatley was a Massachusetts slave who was an exception to the time, and received a first-rate education from her owners. Like Mary Johnson, who received her name after a ship, she arrived on the Phillis and was given that name. By the time she was twelve, she could read Greek and Latin, and her owners, the Wheatley’s, soon realized she was a prodigy and invested in her education and writing abilities. She had her first poem published in the newspaper at the age of fourteen, entitled “On Messrs Hussey and Coffin”, and became the first African-American woman to have her poem published.

Because of all the restrictions on African-Americans, Phillis and her owners had a hard time getting more of her work published. In an incredible show of support, the Wheatley’s sent Phillis (accompanied by a family member) to London to see if she would receive more success across the pond. There, in 1773, she was able to publish a full book of poems entitled “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.” This was the thing to do back then, publish your own book of poems.

After this publication, and because she was a slave, she became an instant celebrity. She had supporters and naysayers, including those who would later become the Founding Fathers. In 1775, she wrote a poem dedicated to George Washington entitled “To his Excellency, George Washington.” He liked it so much that he invited Phillis to his home in 1776 to personally thank her. One of her biggest champions was John Hancock. One of her most out-spoken critics? Thomas Jefferson.

Towards the end of her life, Phillis would literally become a starving artist. After her owners died in 1778, she became free and married; yet the couple would live out their days in poverty. At her death, Phillis was working as a cook and servant, and was no longer able to support herself as a poet. It is an ironic cliché, that such a genius artist would die forgotten. However, her legacy now lives on, and many credit Phillis as the mother of the African-American poetry genre that would go on to influence so many others after her.

Further Reading: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

OLD ELIZABETH (b. circa 1766 – d. circa 1866)

Cover image of
really old version of
Old Elizabeth's memoirs

Two hundred years after Ann Hutchinson shook up the Puritans in Massachusetts with her crazy notion that a woman could preach, Old Elizabeth took up the female ministry torch and swung it at the Methodists. Known only to us by this name, Old Elizabeth was born into slavery around 1766 in Maryland. Her parents were deeply religious and read the bible to the family every Sunday, which was a dangerous thing to do at the time. At a young age, she was sold to another farm and tried to runaway back to her mother. Her mother convinced her to return, and her new owner lashed her for her disobedience. According to Old Elizabeth, it was around this time that she started receiving visions and messages from God.

Elizabeth was sold a couple of more times after this, and ended up with a Presbyterian owner who emancipated her on his death. She was now thirty and still receiving visions calling her to preach. Barely able to read and write, she turned to the “church authorities” on these visions. Everyone she spoke with gave her the same reply: preaching was not women’s business.

Now in her forties, vision’s at full blast, Elizabeth took matters into her own hands and began holding her own ministries. Often in the home of other women, Elizabeth held dramatic revival-type congregations in which she received the direct word of God through divine revelations. It’s the 1800s, and we are full-on into the Evangelical Movement and the Second Great Awakening in America. It would have been very easy for Old Elizabeth to hitch herself to this movement and float around preaching. She traveled all over, from Virginia to Canada, spreading the word of God.

Time and again, wherever Elizabeth held congregation, male ministries would try and shut her down. An unmarried, emancipated, black woman speaking in tongue was too much for the church to handle. But Elizabeth would not be stopped. Barely literate, she was able to turn the very scripture these men were trying to use against her back onto them. When a group of white ministers tried to discredit her visions by saying that “revelations” had ended when Jesus ascended to heaven, Elizabeth shot back “when did the apostle John get his revelation while he was in the Isle of Patmos then?” Burn.

At the age of 80, Elizabeth moved to Michigan, and founded an orphanage for black children. Always crafty, she got around public opposition by staffing it with white teachers. She moved to Philadelphia when she was 87 and had an account of her life published in 1863, Memoir of Old Elizabeth, A Coloured Woman. Wise beyond her years, this quote from her memoir seems to sum it all up: “I look upon man as a very selfish being, when placed in a religious office, to presume to resist the work of the Almighty; because He does not work by man's authority.”

Further Reading: Memoir of Old Elizabeth, A Coloured Woman
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Link to Black History Month Part 1: Women Shaping America
Link to Black History Month Part 3: Women in a Man's World

Black History Month Part 1: Women Shaping America

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:47:39 PST

February is Black History Month in America, and I know everybody is going to be getting their Rosa Parks’ on. And rightly so. But, she is only one in a cast of many great and fascinating African-American women going back to the 1600s. For Black History Month, I’m doing a three-part series on incredible African-American women whose lives and events shaped this country and paved the way for all the Rosa Parks’s in the world. Some of the names are oldies-but-goodies that you might recognize, and hopefully some of them are new names worthy of adding to your Chick History repertoire.

Black History Month Part 1: Women Shaping America

It’s sad but true. In the North American colonies and the beginning’s of what would become America, black women were usually one of two things: indentured servants or slaves. In the very beginning, most black people in America were indentured servants and could work their way into freedom. And this was the case more often than not, in the beginning. However, the longer we stuck around, the stickier things got. The 1600s and early 1700s was a period when slavery became institutionalized in America. It was a slow process, with court rulings over court rulings adding up over time. Mary Johnson and Elizabeth Key Grinstead were two women whose lives were caught up in Colonial America and became precedent for the laws that would eventual lead to the institutionalization of slavery and the legal status of blacks in America.

MARY JOHNSON (birth date unknown – died after 1670)

Mary Johnson arrived to Virginia in 1623 on board a ship named “Margaret.” This may be where her name comes from, for it was common for owners to name Africans after the ship they arrived in (which is how Phillis Wheatley received her first name, and who is in Part 2 of this series). Some sources say the ship records have her listed as “Juana, a Negro,” others have her listed as Mary. Soon after arriving she married a black indentured servant named Anthony Johnson. The two worked and paid off their servitude and became free blacks who owned a farm in Virginia and later in Maryland.

In 1654, in a stunning turn of events, Mary’s husband Anthony filed a suit in Northampton County, Virginia (eastern shore area) stating that a black man named John Casor was not an indentured servant but actually Anthony’s “for life.” John Casor had been insisting he had paid off his servitude and was now working for a man named Robert Parker. There had been some back and forth for a while, and some sources indicate Mary and her sons had tried to convince Anthony to just let it go. Nevertheless, Anthony filed suit and won, and the courts ruled that John Casor was Anthony Johnson’s servant for life…or slave. This ruling is, to date, the earliest written record of a person being declared someone’s property for life in the colonies.

1670 Court document declaring
Anthony Johnson an "alien"

If that isn’t enough to blow your mind, in 1670, after Anthony Johnson’s death, the courts ruled that because he was black, he was an alien (a non English-subject, not a martian) and therefore his 250-acre farm could not go to Mary or her children but had to revert back to the crown. So, with the Johnson family and in a span of about fifteen years, the colonies established slavery and the non-citizenry of free blacks. This fascinating story sheds light on the complicated, and contradictory, history that is America.

ELIZABETH KEY GRINSTEAD (b. 1630 – died after 1665)

In July 1656, Elizabeth Key Grinstead was the first African-American woman to sue for her freedom in the colonies and win. She also secured it for her son, John Grinstead. Elizabeth was the daughter of a black servant and Thomas Key, an Englishman and member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. You guessed it, Thomas was already married and had no intention of supporting the child.

Charges were brought against Thomas in a civic case in which sworn testimonial was given that Thomas was the father of Elizabeth and therefore he must support her. Thomas then tried to pin it on another man (a Turkish man, no less). The courts didn’t believe him, and Thomas was forced to admit paternity and support the child. He had her baptized in the Church of England faith.

Shortly after, Thomas died and left Elizabeth to the care of Humphrey Higginson in the form of a nine-year servitude. This was common practice for illegitimate children of white and black unions to be put into indentured servitude until they came of age. Long story short, Elizabeth works for well over nine years, marries another indentured servant (a white lawyer), has children, is transferred to another man named Mottram, etc., but is never released from her servitude.

At Mottram’s death, Elizabeth and her sons get caught up in the estate and people try to say she is part of the property. In steps her husband. He successfully argues her “freedom case” and wins. Elizabeth’s case was argued on several key points: 1.) her father was an Englishman, and therefore Elizabeth was an English-subject, 2.) she had been baptized in the Church of England, and 3.) she had more than worked off her servitude.

As you can imagine, this had serious repercussions for the legality of blacks, free or slave. This was not the only “freedom case” going on at the times, and by far not the only case involving an illegitimate child of a white man and slave/servant woman. In 1662, the Virginia House of Burgesses, the same government body Elizabeth’s father sat on over twenty years prior, passed a law that would change the course of African-American’s lives, inheritance, and ancestry in this country for centuries. It declared that any child born from a woman of African descent (which leaves the door wide open) would follow the status of the mother. Meaning, if the woman was a slave or indentured servant, so was the child. This was a radical departure from English law, which mandated that children’s status follow the father. Other colonies would follow suit in later years. This law effectively released all men who fathered a child from an “African” woman from any parental or legal responsibility.

------------------------------
Link to Black History Month Part 2: Women Finding Their Own Voice
Link to Black History Month Par 3: Women in a Man's World

Your Chance to See Lady Gaga's Red-Meat Dress in Historical Context is Finally Here

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 07:21:28 PST

Madonna's somewhat
regrettable gold
bustier designed by
Jean Paul Gaultier
from her 1990
Blonde Ambition Tour.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum will open a groundbreaking and provocative new exhibit that will illustrate the important roles women have played in rock and roll, from its inception through today. Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power will highlight the flashpoints, the firsts, the best, the celebrated -- and sometimes lesser-known women -- who moved rock and roll music and the American culture forward.

The interactive exhibition will spotlight more than 60 artists and fill two entire floors of the museum. The exhibit will feature artifacts, video and listening stations, as well as a recording booth where visitors can film a short story or moment of inspiration related to women in rock. The exhibit will move through the rock and roll eras, weaving a powerful and engaging narrative that demonstrates how women have been the engines of creation and change in popular music, from the early years of the 20th century to the present. Women Who Rock is sponsored by PNC and Time Warner Cable.

The exhibition goes all the way back to the 1920s and Juke-Joints and ends with Ladies of the Millennium and the red-meat dress of Lady Gaga. Oh yeah.

Follow the links to learn more:

Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power at RockHall.com

Women Who Rock: Collection Items Photo Gallery at RockHall.com

Six Women Make the Cut of 25 Most Influential African Americans of All Time

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 20:36:41 PST

On January 17, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, TheGrio.com, released a list of the 25 Most Influential African Americans in U.S. History of All Time. TheGrio.com is a website devoted to the news, opinions, and contributions of black people in America and around the world. The list covers a range of people who had "impactful contributions to African-American leadership and legacy."

I'm happy to say that six women made the list, and four of them made the top ten. Interestingly, they are the last four of the top ten...not sure what is going on there. But, the list of women with their rank are:

7. Harriet Tubman  - Underground Railroad Conductor and Civil War Spy
8. Rosa Parks - c'mon, you know this one
9. Ida B. Wells-Barnett   - Post-reconstruction activist
10. Ella Baker  - Civil Rights Movement activist
17. Fannie Lou Hamer - Leader in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement
21. Mary McLeod Bethune - Pioneer in the field of African-American Education

You can see the full list here.

Calling All #wmnhist Hashtag Users on Twitter

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:14:07 PST

Over the past several months/years (I am new to twitter, please forgive my temporal disjunction) there have been several #wmnhist twitter projects started. Most recently @ShelbyKnox started one to create a calendar of "This Day in History" called the Radical Women's History Project for women's achievements. A while back @AAUW - American Association of University Women - started a similar one called Women's History Wednesday to start a twitter dialogue with the #wmnhist hashtag. And anybody who is anybody uses #wmnhist if they are tweeting about something related to Women's History (and they have enough room left with the 140 character allotment). And I know that there have been others that I am just not aware because I just came aboard Twitter, so please forgive me!

That being said...I have created an online newspaper called "Women's History Weekly Digest." This is an aggregate e-newspaper that pulls all the tweets with the #wmnhist hashtag and publishes it like a newspaper with "contributors." I came across this awesomeness because a blog entry I wrote and then tweeted was picked up.

I thought it was too cool to pass up, so I tried it out to see what it would look like. The only information I entered for searching was the #wmnhist hashtag. The website does all the rest, including categories. Chick History is the "creator" but controls no content. It automatically updates every Thursday with tweets containing that hashtag and a link to a blog or article from the week.

I've been inspired by all the #wmnhist tweets and efforts, and I thought this would be a great way to showcase all the collected knowledge of our tweets! The more we tweet and the more people pick this up, the larger the scope will get and I think will be a amazing way to connect and learn what everyone is doing around the world with Women's History. It even has a link to get an html code to embed into all our respective websites.

Here is the link, and forward this on to anyone you think might be interested!

Women's History Weekly Digest

Brewing Ale and Breaking the Law in Late Medieval Scotland

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:31:38 PST

Meet me at the Sign of the Woman

as Producer and Consumer of
Beer in Late Medieval Scotland

Anyone who has been to Scotland knows how important ale is to the Scottish diet. Elizabeth Ewan, unironically, argues this point in an essay titled “For Whatever Ales Ye’: Women as Consumers and Producers in Late Medieval Scottish Town.” The essay sets up Scottish women as the primary producer of ale (everybody made their own beer back then) and therefore the primary consumer of ale. With out purified water, ale and wine were pretty much the only options for beverages during those days. So, in order to keep the fridge stocked, women had to make beer for the family. And then drink it all day long while they were making it, just like testing the cake batter.

The separate burghs (towns) in Scotland created strict regulations for the buying, making, and selling of ale because it was the main beverage. In all fairness, they had to make sure everyone had equal buying opportunities lest they all dehydrate. Various laws were put into place. All ale had to meet quality standards, the price of ale was regulated, and ale could only be sold at official markets at official prices. Inspectors used their own equipment and were responsible for “tasting” the ale to make sure it was high quality, which we all know is subjective based on the popularity of brands such as Miller and Coors.

It should be no surprise that these laws were constantly broken, mostly because ale was brewed at home and difficult to regulate. Because women were the primary brewers, women were breaking the law left and right. Of all the laws, women were charged with breaking the quality-control regulations and illegally selling ale the most. The town of Dundee was a hot-bed for this white color crime. In 1521 a couple of women got busted for using false weights when setting their prices. Two years later, a woman named Jonet Holat was banished from town for using false weights. Suspiciously, a similarly named woman called Janet Howlk was accused of buying at wholesale and then illegally reselling outside the market, punishable by banishment. The wife of a man named Jonkyn Inch was accused of only selling to the highest bidder.

Another common occurrence was for somebody to pre-pay for ale and then the goods “mysteriously never show up.” In 1470, a wife and her husband, named Alexander Turbe, were accused of taking a man’s money and not delivering the wheat (needed to brew ale) he had supposedly purchased. Around 1521, a man named Will Lawson pursued a woman he said owed him malt that he had bought.

There were also regulations on who could brew. Men, and most women, were only allowed one profession. In 1468, brewer Ellen Bessat of Aberdeen was given the shakedown for having other jobs, one of them being a “receiver of stolen goods.” In Edinburgh in 1530, laws tried to restrict brewing to the upper class and allowing only burgess families to brew the most expensive ale. The following year, one-tenth of women brewers broke this law.

Ale was so important to the Scottish diet that victims would go to sobering lengths for justice. A Dunfermline woman who ran her own alehouse kicked out a man for being a sloppy drunk. Apparently he hadn’t finished his drink so he sued her for his money because he had paid for it. I sure hope he got his twelve shillings back.

However, as important as beer was, the makers of beer in Scotland did not enjoy a high social status. According to Ewan, brewing was a secondary occupation that mostly women partook in because they had to put food and drink on the table. It wouldn’t be until 1820 and the vision of the Germans with the first Oktoberfest that beer would finally receive its place in the pantheon of alcoholic beverages.

Further resources:

“For Whatever Ales Ye’: Women as Consumers and Producers in Late Medieval Scottish Town,” by Elizabeth Ewan, pp. 125-135. From Women in Scotland: c.1100 – c.1750, edited by Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen M. Meikle (East Linton, 1999).

New Book Tells the Story of the Women Behind Famous Artists

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:32:55 PST

Lover: Portraits by 40 Great Artists
by Juliet Heslewood
Publisher: Frances Lincoln (January 1, 2011)

Every wonder who those women were behind some of the most famous art in the world? Well, at least Western art? Now's your chance to find out. From the book description:

"Juliet Heslewood, art historian and author of Mother: Portraits by 40 Great Artists, brings together a collection of portraits of artists' lovers, through history to the present day.

The evolution of such a portrait begins with a unique and intimate relationship. These lovers were important to the artists, each one making an appearance upon canvas or paper, in plaster or stone. Exploring notions of forbidden love, lover as muse, as spouse, as life-long friend, the author tells the stories behind each of the works featured, and what they tell us about the artist, their relationships and their place in history.

From Raphael, Rubens and Rossetti to Klimt and Hockney, over forty portraits make up this collection of artists' lovers. A fascinating combination of biographical anecdote and art history, it is also a celebration of relationships, partnership and love.

Juliet Heslewood studied the History of Art at London University and later gained an MA in English Literature at Toulouse. For over twenty-five years she lived in France where she devised and led study tours on art and architecture as well as continuing her writing career. Her books include The History of Western Painting for young people which was translated into twelve languages. She also wrote its companion on sculpture and Introducing Picasso. She has published collections of world folk-tales. Juliet now lives in Oxfordshire where she continues to write on both art and folklore and is a freelance lecturer in the History of Art."

Further Resources:

Review in the London Telegraph

The Austere Absence of Women at a Nazi Christmas Party

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 12:58:42 PST

LIFE.com recently posted a photo gallery of Adolf Hitler and Nazis at a Christmas Party in 1941. Labeled as "shocking," the photos have captions that are spot on for bringing to light the contradiction of the radical Nazi ideology of a master race and empire against the backdrop of the peaceful message of Christmas, symbolized by a Jewish-born savior. Well done, LIFE. That is one way of looking at these pictures.

But can we dig deeper? Are there other stories we can tell with these photographs? What else is creepy crazy here?

When I look at these pictures, the striking thing to me is there is not one woman present. That is what I saw first. And then I asked, why? And then I remembered that Nazism had a strict role for women during their political reign. Women were encouraged to, and praised for, marrying and continuing on the population. So of course they are not at the party. They are at home. For Hitler, they had no place at a Military Christmas Party. And then, if you are like me, you'll spend the rest of the day on the internet researching women's roles in Nazi Germany and find some really cool stuff to bring up at dinner.

Just an example of another way of looking at Life.

Before "The Great Fire of London" Celtic Warrior-Queen Had Already Burned the City Down to the Ground

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:15:44 PST

The British doctor

from "ER" portrays

Boudica in a PBS

Masterpiece Theater

production titled

Warrior Queen

Just north of the London Bridge is a two-hundred-foot-tall memorial for the Great Fire of London that devastated the Old City in 1666. However, this was not the first time London had been engulfed in flames. Almost two thousand years before that, in 61CE, a warrior-queen known as Boudica burned down London as she led an uprising of 100,000 Celts against the Romans occupying Britain.  

The Roman Empire had made its way to the British Isles around 43 CE and quickly began assimilating the native Briton population -- made up of Celtic Tribes -- by bribery, coercion, or force. Boudica (pronounced Boo-di-ka) and her husband, Prasutagus, were the King and Queen of the Iceni Tribe located in the present-day county of Norfolk, along the east coast of Great Britain.

Prasutagus and Boudica realized that by cooperating with the Romans, instead of resisting, they could earn power and wealth and lead a Roman life, seen as exotic and prestigious at the time. In exchange for their allegiance, they were allowed to maintain their aristocratic status among their people. Upon his death, Prasutagus left half his kingdom to his wife and the other half to the Roman Empire. But just like that scorpion who suckered the frog into taking him across the river and then stung him anyway, the Romans didn’t live up to their end of the bargain. They seized the entire kingdom, sold half the royal family into slavery, publicly beat Boudica, and violated her daughters. As you can imagine, it was on.  

Boudica rallied neighboring Celtic kingdoms who had their own grievances with the Romans and so began Boudica’s Rebellion. They began in Camulodunum (present-day Colchester) and drove out the Romans and burned down the city. Next, they marched into Londinium (London) and burned it down and massacred 25,000 inhabitants. They then turned their torches north and set their eyes on Verulamium (St. Albans).   

At this point, Roman Emperor Nero (about 23 years old at the time) got word of the revolt and began freaking out. His man on the street, Governor Suetonius, had been busying himself trying to conquer Wales. He hightailed himself back to Britain to crush the rebel alliance. He took a stand along the major trading route known as Watling Street, and scholars believe Boudica’s last battle was somewhere along this road in the West Midlands area. Encountering the trained and heavily armed Roman army, the Celtic warriors didn’t have a chance in an open-air combat scenario. The Roman army defeated Boudica and put an end to the rebellion. Most agree that up until this Roman victory, Nero would have pulled out of Britain all together.

Route of Buodica's Death March:

View Boudica's Rebellion in a larger map

What happened to Boudica at this point is a mystery. The only ancient sources referring to Boudica are Roman sources written after the rebellion. Tacitus included her story in two of his writings, Agricola (98CE) and The Annals (109CE), and Cassius Dio wrote of her exploits a century afterwards, in The Rebellion of Boudica (163CE). According to the authors, its possible she either poisoned herself to avoid being taken prisoner, or she died after the battle. Regardless, her rebellion was enough to make Emperor Nero think twice about how he handled Britain. Shortly afterwards, he cleaned house and replaced the Governor and administrators with non-military politicians.  

Once again, Melvin Briggs is busting it wide open with his BBC4 radio show In Our Times (see Ada Lovelace entry). In the first nine minutes, his guests drop the bomb that Boudica may not even exist because there is no archaeological evidence of her. The only physical evidence for Boudica are coins related to her husband, Prasutagus, and the geological layer of burnt ash in the cities she sacked.

Statue of Boudica, by Thomas  
Thorncroft, near London Parliament

After the Roman sources, Boudica’s name is lost in literary tradition. Her story is revived during the Renaissance and Tudor times as another feisty queen, Elizabeth I, identifies with her as a leader that challenged foreign invasion. Later, Queen Victoria channeled her as a national British hero. A bronze statue of Boudica now stands near the London House of Parliament which was commissioned in 1905.   

Further Resources:

In Our Times Radio Show

Roman Sources
Tacitus, The Annals, 109CE (Book XIV, 42nd paragraph)
Tacitus, Agricola, 98CE (Entry #16)

Early Eyewitness Account of Pearl Harbor by Woman Pilot

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 14:56:23 PST

Moments before the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a woman pilot instructor was conducting the last training session of a civilian student in the airs over the harbor. Nashville-born Cornelia Fort noticed an unidentified military plane flying straight towards her. She grabbed the controls from her student, maneuvered out of the way, and surveyed the situation. At this point, she realized the gravity of the situation and that she was an unarmed civilian plane in the air, and right in front of her, Pearl Harbor was being bombed.

The attack inspired Cornelia Fort to join the military, but options were limited for female pilots. Plans were already underway to begin separate Women Auxiliary branches in the military, and shortly after Pearl Harbor, the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) was formed in 1942. Cornelia enlisted immediately. The WAFS's two primary responsibilities were to ferry military planes to active military bases and escort men pilots to their bases.

In May 1943, over Texas, Cornelia Fort was transporting a BT-13 plane to a base when she was struck by a fellow male pilot. She was killed in the mid-air collision, and became the first woman pilot to die while in active duty in US Military history. She was twenty-four. A couple of months prior, she submitted an article to Women's Home Companion magazine, which they published posthumously in July.

The essay is Cornelia's eyewitness account of Pearl Harbor, her motivation to join the military, and life as a woman pilot during WWII. On one hand, Cornelia recounts the biases men had towards female pilots, and at the same time, she freely employes the derogatory term applied to the Japanese during the time. She possesses a strong worldview of her contribution to the war effort -- that while she can never fly in combat, she delivers the men or planes that will eventually go into combat. And my personal favorite, she wants to make it clear that flying is not as sexy as you might think because "your lipstick might wear off." God I love primary sources!

Here is the full article:

At the Twilight's Last Gleaming, by Cornelia Fort
"Women's Home Companion", July 1943.

I KNEW I was going to join the Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron before the organization was a reality, before it had a name, before it was anything but a radical idea in the minds of a few men who believed that woman could fly airplanes. But I never knew it so surely as I did in Honolulu on December 7, 1941.

At dawn that morning I drove from Waikiki to the John Rogers Civilian airport right next to Pearl Harbor, where I was a civilian pilot instructor. Shortly after six-thirty I began landing and take-off practice with my regular student. Coming in just before the last landing, I looked casually around and saw a military plane coming directly toward me. I jerked the controls away from my student and jammed the throttle wide open to pull above the oncoming plane. He passed so close under us that our celluloid windows rattled violently and I looked down to see what kind of plane it was.

The painted red balls on the tops of the wings shone brightly in the sun. I looked again with complete and utter disbelief. Honolulu was familiar with the emblem of the Rising Sun on passenger ships but not on airplanes.

I looked quickly at Pearl Harbor and my spine tingled when I saw billowing black smoke. Still I thought hollowly it might be some kind of coincidence or maneuvers, it might be, it must be. For surely, dear God . . .

Then I looked way up and saw the formations of silver bombers riding in. Something detached itself from an airplane and came glistening down. My eyes followed it down, down and even with knowledge pounding in my mind, my heart turned convulsively when the bomb exploded in the middle of the harbor. I knew the air was not the place for my little baby airplane and I set about landing as quickly as ever I could. A few seconds later a shadow passed over me and simultaneously pullets spattered all around me.

Suddenly that little wedge of sky above Hickam Field and Pearl Harbor was the busiest, fullest piece of sky I ever saw.

We counted anxiously as our little civilian planes came flying home to roost. Two never came back. They were washed ashore weeks later on the windward side of the island, bullet-riddled. Not a pretty way for the brave little yellow Cubs and their pilots to go down to death.

The rest of December seventh has been described by too many in too much detail for me to reiterate. I remained on the island until three months later when I returned by convoy to the United States. None of the pilots wanted to leave but there was no civilian flying in the islands after the attack. And each of us had some individual score to settle with the Japs who had brought murder and destruction to our islands.

When I returned, the only way I could fly at all was to instruct Civilian Pilot Training programs. Weeks passed. Then, out of the blue, came a telegram from the War Department announcing the organization of the WAFS (Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron) and the order to report within twenty-four hours if interested. I left at once.

Mrs. Nancy Love was appointed Senior Squadron Leader of the WAFS by the Secretary of War. No better choice could have been made. First and most important she is a good pilot, has tremendous enthusiasm and belief in women pilots and did a wonderful job in helping us to be accepted on an equal status with men.

Because there were and are so many disbelievers in women pilots, especially in their place in the army...Officials wanted the best possible qualifications to go with the first experimental group. All of us realized what a spot we were on. We had to deliver the goods or else. Or else there wouldn't ever be another chance for women pilots in any part of the service.

We have no hopes of replacing men pilots. But we can release a man to combat, to faster ships, to overseas work. Delivering a trainer to Texas may be as important as delivering a bomber to Africa if you take the long view. We are beginning to prove that women can be trusted to deliver airplanes safely and in the doing serve the country which is our country too.

I have yet to have a feeling which approaches in satisfaction that of having signed, sealed and delivered an airplane for the United States Army. The attitude that most nonflyers have about pilots is distressing and often acutely embarrassing. They chatter about the glamour of flying.

Well, any pilot can tell you how glamorous it is. We get up in the cold dark in order to get to the airport by daylight. We wear heavy cumbersome flying clothes and a thirty-pound parachutes. You are either cold or hot. If you are female your lipstick wears off and your hair gets straighter and straighter. You look forward all afternoon to the bath you will have and the steak. Well, we get the bath but seldom the steak. Sometimes we are too tired to eat and fall wearily into bed.

None of us can put into words why we fly. It is something different for each of us. I can't say exactly why I fly but I know why as I've never known anything in my life.

I knew it when I saw my plane silhouetted against the clouds framed by a circular rainbow. I knew it when I flew up into the extinct volcano Haleakala on the island of Maui and saw the gray-green pineapple fields slope down to the cloud-dappled blueness of the Pacific. But I know it otherwise than in beauty. I know it in dignity and self-sufficiency and in the pride of skill. I know it in the satisfaction of usefulness.

For all the girls in the WAFS, I think the most concrete moment of happiness came at our first review. Suddenly and for the first time we felt a part of something larger. Because of our uniforms which we had earned, we were marching with the men, marching with all the freedom-loving people in the world.

And then while we were standing at attention a bomber took off followed by four fighters. We knew the bomber was headed across the ocean and that the fighters were going to escort it part of the way. As they circled over us I could hardly see them for the tears in my eyes. It was striking symbolism and I think all of us felt it. As long as our planes fly overhead the skies of America are free and that's what all of us everywhere are fighting for. And that we, in a very small way, are being allowed to help keep that sky free is the most beautiful thing I have ever known.

I, for one, am profoundly grateful that my one talent, my only knowledge, flying, happens to be of use to my country when it is needed. That's all the luck I ever hope to have.

1,000 Years Ago, Depressed Housewife’s Diary Spawned Japanese Heian Literary Tradition

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:00:27 PDT

Known only to us as Michitsuna no haha (mother of Michitsuna), the secondary wife of a noble Japanese aristocrat, this anonymous woman authored the oldest surviving work of Japanese literature known as nikki bungaku – diary literature. She was born the daughter of a governor in 935, and married a nobleman named Fujiwara no Kaneie in 954. At the time he was a captain, but he soon climbed the ranks of the Emperor’s courts and became regent, mostly because his daughters gave birth to future Emperors. He was already married to Tokihime, who bore him at least five children, and the aforementioned emperor bearers.

I use the word marriage with caution. During the Japanese Heian period (794-1185), marriage customs left a lot to be desired. Marriage was based around the “duolocal residence” principal in which the husband lived in his own home, and the wife lived in hers, typically never moving out of her parents’ home. Which I guess would just be still living with your mom.

During courtship, the man wrote poems and letters to the woman. If they were well received, he would begin visiting her. After about three visits they were considered married. If the husband stopped visiting, at any point in their lifetime, they were considered divorced. You can see this left the woman in a very precocious social position. As it went, Kaneie stopped visiting Michitsuna and they became estranged after almost twenty years of marriage.

The man of the hour:

Fujiwara no Kaneie,

by Kikuchi Yosai,

19th century

historical portraitist

To top this off, aristocratic women of the Heian period lived secluded lives, relegated to the interior rooms of their homes and imprisoned by the heavy fashion of the period (think Kimono’s on steroids). Plus, Kaneie had at least six other wives/lovers besides Michitsuna and Tokihime.

The Kagerō Diary is Michitsuna’s haunting and poetic tale of her life and contains the opening words "Thus the time has passed and there is one in the world who has lived such a vain existence, catching on to neither this nor that.”

In some translations, kagerō means mayfly and in others it means heat mirage. The book is divided into three parts. The first is a recollection of the courtship with her husband. The second is the struggles and hardships of her marriage falling apart. The final section is her acceptance of her life and devotion to her children. Appreciated for her prose and raw emotionality, Michitsuna describes nights she was at home taking care of her son while her husband was with other women and a thwarted attempt to join a Buddhist nunnery to escape her life.

Historically, The Kagerō Diary is the first piece of literature that describes in detail the customs and court life of the Heian period. It is also the only major work of prose surviving from the Heian period that pre-dates the Tale of Genji, the de facto work of Japanese literature of the era (also written by a woman). The diary was the first of its kind and had a major influence on all later diary literature of the period. Scholars are divided on the legacy of the work and promote two opposing motivations, both based on 20th century sensibilities. One school of thought suggests the diary is a social commentary and protest of the Heian marriage system. The other projects that Michitsuna was an extremely depressed woman and the diary was her emotional catharsis.

Regardless, Michitsuna seems to be ahead of her times in attempting to define herself in contextual terms and offering her worldview. The work is a testament to the literary arts flourishing during the Heian period and a unique voice for the women of the time.

Further resources:

Motivations of the Author of the Kagero Nikki
Review of The Kagero Diary

Translations:
There are two English translations of the diary of which I am aware:
1. The Kagerō Diary, 1997, by Sonja Arntzen
2. The Gossamer Years (alternate title translation), 1955, by Edward Seidensticker. The introduction to this version is worth a read, because it offers a great glimpse into 1955 scholarship and views of women. He uses sayings like “her resentment against Kaneie and her venomous rage at her rivals (the other mistresses),” “Kaneie continued to look for new lady friends” and “helping my authoress.” Just sayin’.

Exhibition: Portraits in Praise of Women

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:26:59 PST

Not so much as art by chicks, so much as art of chicks. Still, looks pretty good...anybody seen it??

John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women
May 29, 2010 - December 31, 2010
Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY

The Fenimore Art Museum is proud to present the first museum exhibition devoted exclusively to portraits of women by American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). "John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women breaks new ground in several ways," commented Dr. Paul S. D'Ambrosio, Vice President and Chief Curator and exhibition organizer. "It is the first exhibition to directly compare the varied attributes of the women Sargent portrayed and the visual strategies employed by the artist to communicate those characteristics. Lastly, paired with the Museum’s new exhibition Empire Waists, Bustles and Lace, the first exhibition of the Museum’s collection of historic costumes, the Sargent exhibition will be the first to allow visitors to see and experience broader historical context of women’s fashion." Included will be drawings of Madame Gautreau, the mysterious subject of Sargent's famous portrait Madame X.

Native American Month Includes a Friend of George Washington, the Chick from Island of the Blue Dolphin, and the First Person to Receive Federal Aid for Education

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:32:14 PST

November is National Native American Heritage Month. In honor of that tradition, here is a list of Female Native Americans who have left their mark on history. If I have misspelled or given the incorrect tribal affiliation, my apologies, and please let me know so I can correct.

Seneca Tribe Leader Visited by George Washington
Queen Aliquippa (d. 1754) was a leader of the Mingo Seneca Tribe who lived near what is now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. George Washington visited Aliquippa in December 1753, stating: "As we intended to take horse here [at Frazer's Cabin on the mouth of Turtle Creek], and it required some time to find them, I went up about three miles to the mouth of the Youghiogheny to visit Queen Aliquippa, who had expressed great concern that we passed her in going to [Fort LeBouef]. I made her a present of a match-coat and a bottle of rum, which latter was thought much the better present of the two." Not sure if this quote means that Queen Aliquippa was feeling shunned because the General was in town and not paying a visit, or if she was mistrustful of his presence. Either way, that bottle of rum seemed to do the trick.

Battle of Little Big Horn Fighters
In what is arguably one of America’s most infamous battles involving Native Americans, it turns out there were some chicks in the mix in the stand that brought down General Custer.

Moving Robe Woman - Hunkpapa Sioux
One Who Walks With Stars - Oglala Sioux
Minnie Hollow Wood - Lakota Sioux
Buffalo Calf Road Woman - Northern Cheyenne

First Female Native American Physician
Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte (1865-1915) was the first American Indian woman to become a physician in the United States. She was also the first person to receive federal aid for education. She was the daughter of Joseph LaFleshe, the last Omaha Chief elected under old tribal rituals. In 1913 she fulfilled a long-term dream by founding a hospital on the Omaha Reservation at Walthill, Nebraska. She died two years after its creation, and it was renamed the Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital in her honor and subsequently designated a national landmark.

Last Royal Monarch of Hawaii

Queen Lili’uokalani (1838-1917) was the last ruling monarch and only queen regent of the Kingdom of Hawaii before it was annexed into the United States. During her reign, she fought American and European interests who tried to overthrow her reign and impose voting restrictions on native Hawaiians. During a revolt, she was thrown in jail and later released. She fought the US Government for the return of land, civil rights, and compensation to her fellow Hawaiians until her death.

First Female Native American to Enlist in Marine Corps
Private Minnie Spotted-Wolf (1923–1988) was the first Native American woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. She enlisted in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve in July 1943, and served for two years during WW II. She was born in Heart Butte, Montana and was a member of the Blackfoot Tribe. This photograph shows Minnie on the left, with two other enlisted female Native Americans, Celia Mix (Potawatomi), and Viola Eastman (Chippewa).

Last Speakers Who Are Women

This is a list of Last Speakers who are women. There are hundreds of distinct Native American languages that die upon an elder’s passing. Some of these women were also the last known members of these tribes, and upon their passing, the tribe became ethnically extinct.

Shanawdithit (ca. 1801–1829), was the last recorded surviving member of the Beothuk people (Newfoundland).
Juana Maria (d. 1853), last member and speaker of the Nicoleño tribe. The book Island of the Blue Dolphins is based on her (Channel Islands, California).
Fidelia Hoscott Fielding (1827–1908), also known as Dji'ts Buddnaca (Flying Bird), was the last native speaker of the Mohegan Pequot language (Connecticut).
Isabel Meadows (1846–1939), was the last fluent speaker of the Rumsen Ohlone language (Northern California).
Roscinda Nolasquez (1892–1987), last known speaker of the Cupeño language (Southern California).
Sally Noble (date of death unknown), last speaker of the Chimariko language (Northwestern California).
Loretta Kelsey, last living speaker of Elem Pomo (California).
Doris Jean Lamar McLemore (b. 1927), the last living fluent speaker of the Wichita language (Oklahoma).

Professional Until the End: Neighbors Never Knew Quiet Woman was a WWII SPY

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:45:51 PDT

Secret Agent Woman

In September this year, Eileen Nearne died of a heart attack in her Torquay flat in the county of Devon, England. When officials cleaned out her apartment and were searching for contact information for her next of kin to arrange the funeral, they found instead medals, papers, and an extraordinary life. Eileen Mary Nearne, a.k.a. Jacqueline Duterte, a.k.a Alice Wood, a.k.a Rose, was a spy for the British army during WWII who worked behind enemy lines in Paris and was captured by the Germans in 1944.

Eileen was born in 1921 in London. Her father was British and her mother French. In 1923, the family moved to France where she lived until WWII broke out. When France became occupied by Germany, Eileen and her sister obtained British passports and moved back to England in 1942, leaving their family behind. They applied for work at the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Because they were native French speakers, they were recruited for undercover work and were trained in wireless techniques. The plan was to receive messages in the field and then code, transmit, and destroy said messages.

In March 1944, Eileen was flown into Indre, France for her assignment. For the next four months she coded and transmitted over 100 messages in German-occupied France back to England. The majority of her transmissions were instructions and arrangements for weapon shipments into France for the resistance movement in and around Paris. In July, she was detected and arrested by the German Gestapo – the secret police of Nazi Germany. She was interrogated and tortured using water torture, but gave up absolutely no information on her real identity. She convinced the Gestapo her name was Madamoiselle du Tort and that she had no idea that the businessman she was “working” for was actually British. She was sent to a concentration camp and later transferred to a labor camp. During these ten months of imprisonment she was tortured, threatened at gunpoint, and her head was shaven.

In April 1945 she was transferred again, and this time she escaped with two other French girls into the woods. She evaded SS Officers once again, insisting she was a French volunteer, and stayed on the run for two weeks staying in abandoned homes and churches. When the American troops rolled in, she ran to them for assistance. Alas, they didn’t believe her story either, and kept her in a camp for the month of May until a British officer arrived and confirmed her identity and repatriated her. Yeah, she’s with us.

I'd like to take this moment and point out that Eileen was 23 years old at this time.

Images of the codes Eileen was responsible
for transmitting back and forth between
London and Paris. These, among other
fascinating material, were made available
by the United Kingdom National Archives

in October after Eileen's death.

Not much of her life after service is known publicly. Later interviews indicate she missed her days working as a patriot for her country and found civilian life unsatisfying. She participated in a documentary on British Spies for the BBC in the 1990s, but she remained in disguise, speaking French, and using her code name Rose. A clip from the interview shows her in a wig recounting her capture and escape. I mean, once a spy, always a spy.

After her death, the British National Archives released the papers they had on her, which include photographs, newspaper articles, letters, and first-hand accounts of her training, services, arrest and escape. You can download these for free at the National Archives website.

These primary sources from the 1940s offer an incredible window into the time period and views of women about their service and capabilities. They also tend to reveal more about the person doing the describing than they do about the person being described.

A male Major assessing her training described her "as very 'feminine' and immature; she seems to lack all experience of the world and would probably be easily influenced by others. It is doubtful whether this student is suitable for employment in any capacity on account of her lack of experience." Two months later she was deployed to France.

The American officer who couldn’t see a trained British spy gave the following thoughtful conclusion: "Subject creates a very unbalanced impression. She often is unable to answer the simplest questions, as though she were impersonating someone else." In her version of the interview, Eileen Nearne states she withheld information to American officers because she didn’t want to give too much away. She was, after all, working for the British on convert military operations.

My favorite is the glowing recommendation SOE Officer Vera Atkins gives her when trying to find her a civilian job after ten months in a German concentration camp. “She is completely untrained, but she is extraordinarily reliable and thorough in any job on which she is keen.” This was a letter to a beauty salon.

If by “extraordinarily reliable and thorough” you mean able to code and transmit sensitive military operations, withstand torture and imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, and escape and invade capture in the woods, then YES, she is qualified to be a beautician.

After her return, she was recommended for and received two military honors, the Member of the Order of the British Empire and the French Croix de Guerre. Once her true identity was discovered after her death, she received a full military funeral with honors. Hundreds attended to pay respects.

Further Resources:
Eileen Nearne Papers at the UK National Archives
BBC Documentary Footage
Files Reveal Bravery of WWII Spy Eileen Nearne

War Heroine Found Dead in Devon to Have Council Funeral
Reluctant Heroine
Funeral of WWII SPY

Most Trusted Source on Halloween Written by a Woman

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:14:03 PDT

This vintage Halloween
card shows a poem a
young girl would recite
while looking into a
mirror in hopes of
seeing the face of her
future husband staring
back at her. Creepy.

How did Halloween make its way to the United States? How did our foremothers and their families practice it? And how hard did I have to twist the apple stem so it came off at "B" so I knew I would marry Bon Jovi?

In celebration of this year’s Halloween, the National Women’s History Museum released A History of Halloween, a short video that explores the ancient origins of the holiday as well as the early practices by American women at the turn of the 20th century.

It notes that Ruth Edna Kelley wrote the first historical record of the holiday's American origins and traditions. Kelley was born in 1893 in Massachusetts and became a librarian and author. In 1919, The Book of Hallowe'en was published, which traces the holiday's history back to pagan sun worship and outlines it's evolution over the centuries.

An exert from Chapter XV: Hallowe'en in America reads:

"In Colonial days Hallowe'en was not celebrated much in America. Some English still kept the customs of the old world, such as apple-ducking and snapping, and girls tried the apple-paring charm to reveal their lovers' initials, and the comb-and-mirror test to see their faces. Ballads were sung and ghost-stories told, for the dead were thought to return on Hallowe'en."

Turns out I'm not the only one who used the clairvoyant properties of apples.

Watch the full video of The History of Halloween made by the National Women's History Museum:

Further Resources:
The History of Hallowe'en Digital Book
National Women's History Museum Halloween Release

What Can Happen When an Exhibition Challenges Us to Change?

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 13:15:11 PST

This has got to be what it looks like when a museum embraces its twenty-first century role as a civic-minded member of the community. The recently opened From the Absence of Many to the Presence of All - The Unfinished Business of Women’s Equality at the National Constitution Center presents the historical struggle for gender equality and then hands off the baton by asking "how can we advance equality by the year 2020?" The exhibition was developed by Vision 2020, who put together this little film. Single tear when I watch this video:

No pressure. That is certainly a heavy question, and one my mind grapes is constantly trying to answer. Will we ever reach true equality? Will there always be, somewhere, an uphill battle? I know I will never quit, despite the odds or challenges. It's a lot to take in before Halloween.

Here's one thing we can do: LADIES, GO VOTE FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! After all, it wasn't too long ago when we couldn't.

Further Resources:
Exhibition Homepage
Vision 2020 Website

Titanic Update: Laura's Affidavit Sold for $32,000

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:38:26 PST

Laura Francatelli's signed affidavit of her account of the Titanic sinking and her survival sold at auction for $32,000. The original estimate for the papers was around $16,000. It was bought by a private collector in Eastern Europe. Here is the full story from the Press Association:

Titanic survivor's account fetches £20,000

(UKPA) – 7 hours ago

A woman's account of escaping the sinking Titanic in 1912 sold for £20,000 at auction.

Laura Francatelli from London said she heard an "awful rumbling" as the liner went down and "then came screams and cries" from 1,500 drowning passengers.

Her account was recorded in a signed affidavit for the official British inquiry into the disaster.

The historic document went under the hammer at Henry Aldridge and Son in Devizes, Wiltshire and was bought by an Eastern European collector.

Miss Francatelli, who was 31 at the time, was travelling with baronet Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife Lady Lucy Christiana, as his secretary.

The account describes how they boarded one of the last lifeboats containing just five passengers and seven crew, admitting they did not consider going back for survivors.

Sir Cosmo later paid the crew members £5 each - now worth about £300 - which some have described as blood money for saving their lives.

Miss Francatelli died in 1967. The document remained in her family until after her death and has since been owned by two private collectors.

An extremely rare lithographic pre-maiden voyage poster, which went for a world record £60,000 for a Titanic poster, was also sold.

It features Olympic in the foreground followed by Titanic in the background, ironically sailing into a sunset, but each underway at sea.

Woman’s Account of Titanic Sinking and Controversial Survivor Story to be Sold at Auction

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:40:13 PST

Titanic survivor Laura Francatelli
is second from the right

“We were a long way off when we saw the Titanic go right up at the back and plunge down. There was an awful rumbling when she went. Then came the screams and cries. I do not know how long they lasted.” These are the words of Laura Francatelli describing the fateful night of August 14, 1912 when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic Ocean, taking with it over 1,500 lives.

Laura Francatelli was a passenger on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. She was the secretary of Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, a notable fashion designer who some credit as staging the first “runway” shows in the form of tea-time, private fashion-viewings with models, stages, and music. She was married to Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, who was important for owning land and fencing.

Laura and the Duff-Gordon’s escaped the Titanic sinking on a rowboat, and Laura’s account of the events will be auctioned off October 16. The multi-page, signed affidavit is expected to fetch $16,000.

The testimony of Francatelli and the Duff-Gordon’s rescue is one of the most controversial survivor stories of the Titanic. The three of them were in Lifeboat #1, which was the fifth boat launched. Of a possible capacity of forty people, it took off with only twelve people. It saved nine men and three women, made up off first-class passengers and crewmen.

Sir Cosmo seems to be one of the many first-class men who got on a lifeboat despite the “women and children” first order. Theirs was also one of those infamous boats reported as not filled to capacity. After evacuation, at some point Sir Cosmo gave the officers in the lifeboat money. Some say it was an expression of gratitude and to help them once they reached shore. Others say it was a bribe to not go back and look for survivors in the water.

And yes, these guys are totally characters in James Cameron's epic masterpiece Titanic.

Laura’s affidavit has been in private hands since her death in 1967, with only excerpts published in books about the Titanic and it’s sinking. Hopefully, the new owner of this priceless, first person account will publish the contents in entirety and shed light on this controversial survivor story.

Further Resources:

List of lifeboat launches and passengers.

Various articles about the auction, all saying basically the same thing:

BBC

KYIVPost

The Press and Journal

Washington Post

Boston Globe

Related Posts:
Titanic Update: Laura's Affidavit Sold for $32,000

Mystery of Myrtis Part 2: Ancient Athenian Girl Turned Global Ambassador

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:26:38 PST

Last Friday, I set the stage for Myrtis, who died in a plague in 430 BCE in Athens. The plague was attributed to a military decision by Pericles to gather all the Athenians into the city walls to protect them from the Spartans. Instead, they died from a plague. Awkward. But, back to Myrtis and who she might have been.

Myrtis was eleven at the time of her death. She was about two to three years away from reaching puberty and therefore eligible for marriage according to Ancient Greek culture. Up until this point, she spent time with her mother learning the domestic sphere and household. If she were of the upper class, she would have been married to a man in his early thirties selected by her father. From there, her life would have consisted of running the household and producing legitimate heirs. Typically, she would live with her husband and run the house and servants. She would go out in public for religious festivals, but always accompanied and never for more than several hours at a time.

Weaving, shown here, was a primary duty of Greek women.
Detail of Pyxis Vase, School of Douris (Hiketes group). 460 BCE.

If she were of the lower class, a servant, or peasant, her life would be much different. She is still on the verge of matrimony, but this time she may be able to select someone herself from the fields. If she were a servant, she would run the errands for the mistress and could be out in public.

It’s also possible that Myrtis was a young girl in a cult. Athenian girls played important roles in religion, assisting priestesses and living in temples. The largest religious cult for a young Athenian girl was the cult of Athena, patron goddess of Athens. Their role was to weave and tend to the ceremonial clothing for the sacred Peplos statue on the Acropolis. During the year, they lived in shrines and temples carved into the sides of the Acropolis rock.

Another ritual designated for young Athenian girls was the aiora, or swinging ritual. Story goes that Erigone, a legendary Athenian girl, killed herself when she came across her murdered father. Her suicide caused Dionysus to wreak havoc on Athens and peer-pressured other mythological Athenian girls to commit suicide. To atone for this sin and prevent real-life suicides, every spring ancient Athenian girls were placed on swings in trees (Erigone hanged herself). The idea being that instead of killing themselves, they would swing safely in the air.

Depiction of aiora swinging festival. Vase.

Penelope Painter. Mid-fifth century BCE.

Who knows which one of these lives Myrtis lead. All that we know for certain is one day she got sick. According to Thucydides’ eyewitness account, it would have started in the head with flashes of high fever, inflamed eyes, bleeding tongue, and foul breathe. Soon, it spread to the chest causing coughing, sneezing, and chest pains. From there, it moved to the stomach and caused vomiting and violent spasms. Ulcer breakouts on the skin would follow, along with insomnia, confusion, and high fever. Thucydides reported that those infected were so hot that they took to wearing no clothes and jumping into public water sources to cool down. This lasted for about seven to eight days until death or recovery.

Archaeologists believe the grave where Myrtis was found is the mass burial site for the victims of this epidemic. Many of the bones and teeth recovered from the site were DNA tested for disease, and that research shows they died of typhoid fever. The site dates to 430 BCE and the placement of the bodies lead scholars to believe that it was used in a state of panic with cheap ceremonies performed. Ancient Greeks had a strict burial process, much like the modern one used by Westerners today. For such a large grave, with haphazardly placed tombs and bodies absent of the typical funerary rites, scholars can only conclude it was made in a hurry to accommodate and dispose of the infected bodies.

The grave where Myrtis’ body was found was in the Kerameikos cemetery, located in an area northwest of the Acropolis. During classical times, the majority of burials were for the upper class. If this were the case during the plague, then at the time of her death, Myrtis might have been a priestess’ assistant…or her dad was busily seeking out a thirty-year-old man for her to marry in three years.

However, if the mass graves were a repository for victims and the hastily buried, which evidence points to, its possible Myrtis was of the lower class or even one of the countryside population brought into the city walls. I can only imagine if Myrtis’ family had been part of the population that was brought into the city walls for protection, only to die this violent death.

Myrtis’ life may have come to a tragic end, but her story lives on. While the science behind facial reconstruction is impressive, it is her story that is enduring. Myrtis has become a representative for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Of their many goals, one includes raising awareness of childhood disease. If Myrtis died of typhoid fever or typhus, these diseases are avoidable and the UN is making sure developing nations that are susceptible to these epidemics have the basic medical care they need to combat them. Hopefully, her story will inspire others to take action and ensure these tragedies are avoided in the future.

Related Post:
Mystery of Myrtis Part 1: Ancient Athenian Girl Turned Global Ambassador

Further Resources:
United Nations Millennium Development Goals
Myrtis: Face to Face with the Past Exhibition Homepage
Video and Press Release of Facial Reconstruction
Plague of Athens 430 BCE
Thucydides on the Plague of 430 BCE
Children in Ancient Greece

Mystery of Myrtis Part 1: Ancient Athenian Girl Turned Global Ambassador

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:23:04 PST

Myrtis, 11-year-old

Ancient Athenian

The National Archaeology Museum in Athens, Greece, opened an exhibition entitled “Myrtis: Face to Face With the Past,” on view until November 30 of this year. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a scientifically reconstructed face of an eleven-year-old girl. Scientists gave her the name Myrtis, a common Greek name that refers to an evergreen shrub used in offerings to the goddess Aphrodite.

Myrtis’ body was actually found in the mid-1990s during an excavation for a new Athens metro station. She was one of approximately 150 bodies excavated from tombs dating to 430 BCE. As I read all the entries on the facial reconstruction and the exhibition, I found one thing lacking. Who was Myrtis? It’s amazing to see what she looked like--though some scholars say her eyes, hair, and skin should be much darker. But I wanted to know who she was. What was her story? And how did her bones end up in a mass grave of 1,000 tombs?

The year 430 BCE was critical for Ancient Athens. Let’s back up and put it into context. It was fifty years after Gerard Butler and his band of 300 ab-machines were defeated by the Persian Empire at the Battle of Thermopylae. The Persian War was supposed to unite all the Greek City/States in order to defeat the invading empire. But, fifty years later, they were back to warring amongst themselves in the Peloponnesian War. 430 BCE was the year of the Great Athenian Plague that lasted for two years, with a couple of flare-ups the following years.

The plague is attributed to a defense decision the Athenian General Pericles made to safeguard his people from the Spartans during the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (which I think should totally be re-enactments like Civil War battles). As the Spartans advanced, Pericles pulled all the countryside population into the city walls of Athens. This dramatically increased the population of an already over-crowded urban center, and Athens became a petri dish for disease.

The Greek Historian Thucydides, who suffered and survived the epidemic, offers us the only eyewitness account. Today, scientists attribute the plague to typhoid, typhus, smallpox, anthrax, or the bubonic plague…to narrow it down a bit. One-third of the population of Athens died from the plague, including Myrtis and the famous general-leader Pericles. I know, hindsight, right?

So who was Myrtis and what was she doing in Athens right before the plague hit and took her life? Check out Part 2 next week to find out what Myrtis was up to, how her life ended, and why she is a representative for global health today.

Related Post:
Mystery of Myrtis Part 2: Ancient Athenian Girl Turned Global Ambassador

Sally Hemings' Biographer Wins Genius Award

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:33:28 PST

Annette Gordon-Reed has become one of my favorite historians. If you don't know who she is, she's the chick that busted open the whole Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings relationship. I credit her with opening the eyes of historians and researches and forcing them to finally take serious this issue of slavery and race relations between our Founding Fathers and African Americans. No biggie.

For awhile, about two hundred years I'd say, the rumors of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings' relationship were never put to the test and history always referred to it as allegations that could not be proven. In 1997, Gordon-Reed published Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. Her research pretty much confirmed what we all knew to be true but didn't want to say out loud: TJ and Sally had a very serious, romantic relationship. It lasted over twenty years and resulted in seven children, two of whom died in childbirth or almost immediately after.

She's written another book on Sally and her family, The Hemingses of Monticello, and this girl has a signed copy. I was fortunate to hear her speak this summer, AT MONTICELLO. It was incredible and her new research on Sally Hemings is enough to make your nerd-radar stay on high alert for years. And I've got to say, she is one of the best public speakers I've heard. Her treatment of such a sensitive issue is very professional and enlightening. She's pretty badass.

On NPR this morning, they announced that she won a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. Duh. In her interview she tells us she is writing a new book on the decedents of the Hemingses into present-day time and then will follow that up with her own biography of Thomas Jefferson. Joseph Ellis look out...you are about to get schooled!!

While this post is about Gordon-Reed and her accomplishment, I do want to say that Sally Hemings is on my short list for Chickhistory and a full entry...possibly a podcast. So, consider this a teaser for things to come, because Sally Hemings' story is amazing.

From the NPR Story (Listen to Interview):

Historian Annette Gordon-Reed is among 23 recipients of this year's MacArthur Foundation "genius grants." She explored the controversial relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings in a book arguing that Jefferson's slave was also the mother of his children. DNA evidence has proved her argument was right. Gordon-Reed talks with Ari Shapiro about the grant.

Exhibition: Last Leg of Freedom Sister's Tour Opens Oct. 23 in Baltimore

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:32:59 PST

"Much of our national memory of the civil rights movement is embodied by male figureheads whose visibility in boycotts, legal proceedings, and mass demonstrations dominated newspaper and television coverage in the 1950s and ’60s. Missing from that picture is a group of extraordinary women who, while less prominent in the media, shaped much of the spirit and substance of civil rights in America, just as their mothers and grandmothers had done for decades."

Freedom Sisters Exhibition

First Computer Geek Was a Woman

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 06:59:02 PDT

Ada Bryon, Countess of Lovelace, 1836,
by Margaret Carpenter

My husband sent me this link, to an NPR Story about the first "computer." I use the word computer lightly, because it was more of a giant calculator than a computer. But, in the 1840s, video games and facebook were not invented yet, so all you needed a "computer" for was math. I'm guessing.

And that is what Charles Babbage was, a mathematician, who designed this GI-normous hand-cranked machine called the Difference Machine. He never raised enough money to build it in his life-time. What is left behind are the letters, notes, and papers of Babbage and those involved in the project.

The Difference Machine was intended to be used to complete complicated calculations that were often unreliable when done by humans. Like charting navigation routes for ships and figuring out how to split the tip at the restaurant.

Enter Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of gothic poet, and closet-vampire, Lord Byron.

She understood that numbers didn't always have to represent numbers. When they stood in for other things, like the alphabet, music, or positions on a chart, you could program them to perform computations. Without this incredible foresight of The Matrix, Charles Babbage would not have been able to put his ideas into writing and create (alas, only on paper) the Difference Machine.

Why is this so awesome? Babbage saw the machine as something that could calculate and perform mathematics. Ada had the vision to the see the machine as something that could compute and perform analytics. In essence, this is the leap between calculating and computing.

Ada's exhaustive notes for Babbage on the Difference Machine include what is identified as the first algorithm, which is what led to her controversial title "mother of computer programming." The debate continues today as to what were her original thoughts and what were her *picking-up-where-Babbage-left-off ideas.* One thing that isn't in dispute: the software language developed and used by the U.S. Department of Defense is named "Ada."

The NPR Story is a good introduction, but definitely check out BBC Radio Host Melvyn Braggs' In Our Times piece on Ada. It gives great background on the time, Ada's biography, and both sides to the argument of her contributions. One of the guest speakers is Doron Swade, an engineer who recreated the Difference Machine in the 1980s based on Babbage's original notes.

Further resources:
Women in Science: A Selection of Sixteen Significant Contributors
Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Chick History Launches

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 18:14:32 PST

Chick History is inspired by the belief that every great story has NOT already been told.

I created Chick History to tell the stories of women's roles and contributions to history, always overlooked, often watered-down, and sometimes all-together edited out.

Chick History is a place to come together and (re)learn about all the cool things chicks have done that, like the dishes, otherwise might go unnoticed.

Chick History - Where Women Rock.

Hope to see you around!

-Rebecca

chickhistory@gmail.com (Chick History) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 10:34:12 PDT