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January 25

01-25 TABLE of CONTENTS: Maud May Wood Park, first president of the League of Women Voters DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Virginia Woolf and Nicole Hollander. Maud May Wood Park       Born 1871, Maud May Wood Park, first president of the League of Women Voters. MMWP traveled extensively on behalf of suffrage and then women's rights. Her Front Door Lobby (1960) states that while Carrie Chapman Catt had been the architect of the nineteenth amendment, Park had been the builder. Catt had persuaded Park to join the NAWSA's Congressional Committee which lobbied congress successfully for the vote.       Considered one of the key women who implemented CCC's "winning plan," Park was president of the Women's Joint Congressional Committee (WJCC) which was largely responsible for the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act of 1921 and the Cable Act of 1922 which granted an American woman citizenship independent citizenship of her husband. Catt broke with Park claiming Park was favoring Republican women over the League.       Married secretly twice, her second marriage was never made public. MMWP and her husband met secretly in hotel rooms during her extensive lecture tours but did vacation together. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 01-25 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 01-25-1477, Anne of Brittany, who successfully maneuvered to preserve the independence of her duchy of Brittany while married to two different French kings. B. 01-25-1831, Jane Goodwin Austin, novelist, essayist, short story writer, may have had her dear friend Louisa May Alcott's collaboration in The Cipher (1869) which combined murder, poisoning, bastardy, miscegenation, super-natural and other such joys that were dear to LMA's heart. Most of her novels were authentically accurate depictions of the Pilgrims which she carefully researched. Event 01-25-1871: Unveiled in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, Vinnie Ream's statue of Abraham Lincoln that was authorized by Congress. To this date, no statue of a woman has been authorized and paid for by Congress. B. 01-25-1871, Maud Wood Park, directed congressional lobbying and was one of the key women implementing Carrie Chapman Catt's winning strategy to get women's suffrage passed. Instrumental in getting congressional approval for many child labor, maternity, and child health reforms as well as the Cable Act of 1922 which granted married women US citizenship independent of their husband's status.       Before the Cable Act, an American-born woman AUTOMATICALLY lost her citizenship when she married a non-American citizen. Of course, there were NO circumstances under which an American MAN could lose HIS citizenship, not even treason. Remember that stirring story, "The Man Without a Country?" B. 01-25-1882, Virginia Woolf, British novelist, essayist, and critic who made an original contribution to the form of the novel with her stream of consciousness. She wrote subjectively rather than objectively. Her A Room of One's Own (1929), a classic feminist essay, as well as Orlando, dedicated to Vita Sacksville-West which is considered one of the world's longest love letter. VM and her husband formed Hogarth Press and were the mainstays of the noted Bloomsbury movement. B. 01-25-1890, Neysa McMein, American artist noted for pastels of women and children, did covers for most of the largest magazines of the first part of the 20th century including Saturday Evening Post and McCalls. Her covers rivaled those of Norman Rockwell until his public relations blitz. She also produced ad materials for a number of consumer products and painted patriotic posters during World War II. B. 01-25-1891, Dame Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, English actor who became a living legend. She continued acting on the stage into her 80s before turning to TV and taping her last segment when she was 100. A star on the classical stage, she was a leading Shakespearean actor and interpreter of Shaw and Tennessee Williams. B. 01-25-1896, Ruth Buxton Sayre, American farm association official who pushed for recognition of the hard work of farm woman towards the family farm economy. Judges in divorces and in probate were refusing to acknowledge farm wives contributions to the building of a farm's value. B. 01-25-1898, Alla Konstantinovna Tarasova, outstanding actor of the Moscow Art Theatre. B. 01-25-1831, Jane Goodwin Austin, novelist, essayist, short story writer, may have had Louisa May Alcott collaboration in The Cipher (1869) which combined murder, poisoning, bastardy, miscegenation, the supernatural and other such joys. Most of her other novels were authentically accurate depictions of the Pilgrims which she carefully researched. B. 01-25-1933, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, first president of the Philippines who was also a woman (1986-1992). She took over the leadership of the "people power" party after her husband was assassinated (1983). CCA herself had been active in politics and came from a family of politicians so she was not a neophyte standing in for another. B. 01-25-1938, Etta James, American pop artist, eight Grammy nominations. B. 01-25-1950, Gloria Naylor, author of The Women of Brewster Place (1982) and Bailey's Cafe (1992). B. 01-25-1950, Virginia Johnson, Afro-American prima ballerina of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Event 01-25-1970, U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Phillips v Martin Marietta that employers could not refuse to hire a woman with small children if they did not also refuse to hire a man with small children. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR WOOLF, VIRGINIA:       "The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman. It is only when we know what were the conditions of the average woman's life, the number of her children, whether she had money of her own, if she had a room to herself, whether she had help in bringing up her family, if she had servants, whether part of the housework was her tasks - it is only when we can measure the way of life and the experience of life made possible to the ordinary woman that we can account for the success or failure of the extraordinary woman as a writer."             -- Virginia Woolf, British essayist, critic and novelist, born 01-25-1882, writing in A Room of Her Own.       "Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size."             -- Virginia Woolf       "I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."             -- Virginia Woolf       "Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice."             -- Virginia Woolf HOLLANDER, NICOLE:       "Can you imagine a world without men? No crime and lots of fat happy women."             -- Sylvia, cartoon by Nicole Hollander | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |