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January 3

01-03 TABLE of CONTENTS: Lucretia Coffin Mott DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Marge Piercy, Lucretia Mott, and Freyda Stark. Lucretia Mott, pioneer in advocating rights for women       Born Jan. 03, 1793, Lucretia Coffin Mott was an early American advocate for the rights of women. Described as a tiger for abolition, she had made her home outside Philadelphia a stop for runaway Southern slaves.       As a revered Quaker elder minister, LCM at 47 went to London in 1840 to attend an international abolition symposium. Staying at the same rooming house was a new American bride, freethinking, 25-year-old Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who would later reside in Boston and upper New York State.       The two would probably never have met in America and would not have done more than nod hello in London had they not been unexpectedly barred - as women - from taking part in the meetings.       Both were irate at the affront, but it gave them free time in which to talk, marveling at how the men were posturing against slavery as immoral while still believing they had the right to keep women in social and legal bondage. The two women continued their friendship after returning to the U.S. Eight years later they produced the Seneca Falls Women's Rights convention of 1848, recognized as the birth of the formal suffrage/women's rights movement in the United States - and the first formal meeting in history anywhere in the world that called for women's rights.       In her Discourse on Woman (1851), Mott said the so-called inferiority of women was because they were barred from education, forced to work for lower wages, kept from employment opportunities, and deprived of political rights. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 01-03 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 01- 03-1797, Madame Vestris, British actress, opera singer, and manager noted for her stage and costume designs. B. 01-03-1806, Henriette Sontag, noted German operatic and concert soprano. Born 01-03-1816, Anne Ayres organized the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion within the Episcopal Church that required only limited service -such as three years - rather than the lifelong commitments of Catholic nuns. B. 01-03-1824, Sophia Packard who with her longtime companion Harriet E. Giles founded the Spelman Seminary, which evolved into Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA. B. 01-03-1841, Emily Huntington, pioneer in the Froebelian kindergarten system in the U.S. who emphasized sewing and cooking for girls called "cooking garden" and later with an associate formed a "farm garden" for boys. She headed Wilson Industrial School for Girls 1872-1892 and wrote several texts to be used in the "cooking garden" classes. Helped form the forerunner of the American Home Economics Association. B. 01-03-1879, Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge, wife of President Calvin Coolidge was a champion of the deaf. Her husband was extremely possessive and *by presidential edict* forbade her from doing a number of things, including cutting her hair or flying in an airplane. After his death in 1933, she became active in civic affairs and even spoke out for American involvement in World War II. B. 01-03-1886, Josephine Sherwood Hull, primarily a stage actor who won the Academy Award for reprising her role as the sister in Harvey. B. 01-03-1898, Zasu Pitts, great comedic actor with more than 100 movie credits. B. 01-03-1900, Dorothy Arzner, the only American woman film director prominent in Hollywood during the big studio era. DA rose through the ranks from typist to script clerk to film cutter to the first woman film editor and assistant director until in 1927 she directed her own movie. In 1929 she directed the first sound film for Paramount Pictures. Most of the 17 major films she directed during the 1930s/40s had strong women in leading roles. Event 01-03-1900: Florence Woods becomes the first American woman to get an automobile driving permit. "An automobile is the simplest thing in the world to handle. I am astonished that women seem so timid." B. 01-03-1913, Joy Chute, author, primarily of short stories. Usually wrote under the initials of B. J. because she wrote a lot of boy stories. Her sister was also an author, Marchette Chute, see WOA 08-16. B. 01-03-1916, Betty Furness, actor, consumer advocate, special assistant to the President of the United States for Consumer Affairs. Known to the older generation as the woman who fought a refrigerator door that refused to open - on LIVE TV - and lost, none too graciously. B. 01-03-1918, Maxene Andrew, the high lead of the immensely popular Andrew Sisters which sold more than 60 million records in the 1930's and 1940's and are still being imitated today. Their most noted records were Bei Mir Bist Du Schon (1931), Rum and Coca Cola (1944) and Don't Fence Me in (1944). Made a number of Hollywood films. LaVerne was the contralto (07-06-1915) and Patti (02-16-1920) the lead singer. Event 01-03-1933, Minnie Davenport Craig was elected Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first woman speaker in U.S. history. B. 01-03-1934, Carla Anderson Hills, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the administration of President Gerald Ford and U.S. trade Representative 1989-1993. Event: 01-03-1939, hired for only one day, Gene Cox, 13, becomes the first female page for the U.S. House of Representatives. Event 01-03-1960: directive issued by the Israeli government defined a "Jew" for religious registration purposes as "a person born of a Jewish mother who does not belong to another religion or one who was converted (to Judaism) in accordance with Jewish law." | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR PIERCY, MARGE:       "All women hustle. Women watch faces, voices, gestures, moods. "She's the person who has to survive through cunning."             -- Marge Piercy, Small Changes, 1973 MOTT, LUCRETIA:       "As the poor slave's alleged contentment with his servile and cruel bondage only proves the depth of his degradation, so the assertion of the woman that she has all the rights she wants, only proves how far the restrictions and disabilities to which she had been subject have rendered her insensible to the blessings of true liberty."             -- Lucretia Mott STARK, FREYDA:       "There is a great moment, when you see, however distant, the goal of your wandering. The thing which has been living in your imagination suddenly becomes a part of the tangible world. It matters not how many ranges, rivers or parching dusty ways may lie between you: it is yours now forever."             -- Freya Stark, 1952. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |