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October 2

10-02 TABLE of CONTENTS: How to win political campaigns   SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde (who???) First Woman in British empire to achieve cabinet rank 17th century merchant Margaret Hardenbrook Philipse Egyptian goddess Taurt DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Will Shakespeare, Muriel Rukeyser; Merlin Stone. Posted 09-01-1999 How to Help Women Candidates and Pro-women Candidates Get Elected       With permission, Women of Achievement and Herstory is posting highlights of Mary Dillard's Winning Campaigns manual. The manual was prepared by Dillard for the Arkansas League of Women Voters.       America's future needs more women candidates who know how to run a winning campaign.       The main chapters of the manual are:       * Campaign planning steps to take before you run;       * Targeting... Steps to focus the campaign;       * Research steps to winning decisions;       * Taking the steps to raise money;       * Steps to an effective organization;       * Contacting voters - making every step count;       * Campaign communications - steps to getting your message heard;       * Step up and shake hands;       * Stepping up to the speaker's stand. (The full text of these main points are in the SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT to this Women of Achievement and Herstory episode.) | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | Lost by Name and Ignored Accomplishments       Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde (who???)       Well, she was one of the first U.S. women to become a full ambassador to a foreign nation.       She was also the first woman from the South elected to the U.S. House of Representatives - and astoundingly had to prove her eligibility as an American citizen to take her seat in the House of Representatives although she was BORN in the U.S. The necessity to prove herself eligible was because of the law (passed by all men) that stripped an American woman of her citizenship if she married a non-U.S. citizen. (The reverse was never true. Men could NEVER lose their U.S. citizenship, regardless of their crimes and certainly not because of love. In fact, many women were automatically U.S. citizens if they married a U.S. citizen!)       Way ahead of her time, RBOR pushed for the creation of the Everglades National Park.       She was also... well, see below at 10-02-1885... an important and influential woman in our nation's herstory/history. A fascinating life! | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | First Woman in British Empire to Achieve Cabinet Rank         Mary Ellen Smith (1862-1933) was the first woman to attain cabinet rank in the British Empire. She was appointed Minister Without Portfolio in British Columbia in 1921.       MES, a native of England emigrated to British Columbia in 1891. She married a member of the legislature who was Minister of Finance when he died in 1917.       MES succeeded her husband into the legislature and then was appointed to the Cabinet. Although she resigned her ministerial post in l922, she continued as a member of the legislature until 1928. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | A Merchant and Ship Owner         Margaret Hardenbrook Philipse, fl 1659, was a Dutch colonial Colonial merchant and shipowner. She was evidently a business agent when she married. She then took over and much improved her husband's mercantile trading business between the Netherlands and New Amsterdam (New York). She enabled her second husband to become very wealthy as she continued in business, even personally sailing with her ships and overseeing the cargo. Her life was not typical of the day even though Dutch women were known to engage in business. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | Taurt - Goddess of Ancient Egypt         Unlike modern religions, the ancients divided their worship between male and female gods, recognizing that both male and female are necessary for the balance of life.       Taurt, also called TAWERET, or THOUERIS, was a goddess of ancient Egypt, the benevolent protectress of fertility and childbirth, associated also with the nursing of infants. Taurt was connected in particular with the goddess Hathor. She was also strongly associated with the inundation of the Nile and received particular worship at Jabal al-Silsila, where rituals were performed for the inundation. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 10-02 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 10-02-1696, Ann Smith Franklin - Colonial women printer. There were a large number of Colonial women who were printers, owners of taverns, silversmiths, artists, merchants, etc. Even though the women of that period had very few legal rights, many of them worked in commercial ventures and were the primary breadwinners of their families. B. 10-02-1720, Elizabeth Montagu - British feminist. EM was a leader of a group of intellectual upper-class women of England who were barred by societal rules from doing anything worthwhile.       Bored and knowing they were worth more than male-dominated society allowed them, they formed an informal group to hold intellectual meetings with the luminaries of the day.       The gatherings usually included the finest women writers of the day. The women were tagged Bluestockings after the hosiery preferred by one of their male lecturers. The term was used in a derogatory manner as men criticized the women for their intelligence and scholarship... both attributes claimed as part of the male prerogative.       One of the intellectuals known as Bluestockings was Elizabeth Carter (B. 12-16-1717), the noted poet and translator who was fluent in seven languages including Latin, Greek, and Hebrew as well as an authority on other subjects such as astronomy. Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote, "My old friend, Mrs. Carter, could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus from the Greek, and work a handkerchief as well as compose a poem."       Another famous member of the group was the novelist and diarist Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay). Hannah More's poem "Bas Bleu" (1782) describes the informal club.       EM published several essays and contributed to Lyttleton's Dialogues of the Dead. EM inherited a large fortune from her husband. The home she built in Mayfair became the social center of the group. B. 10-02-1755, Hannah Adams - U.S. historian. HA published a number of books such as A Summary History of New England (1799), and History of the Jews (1812) as well as her An Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects Which Have Appeared from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Present Day (1784).       A Reverend Morse published a condensed version of New England history following HA's longer version and that caused a literary controversy. He published first and HA's sales from her shorter version for school use were consequently slight causing her great financial strain.       An arbitration resulted in what has been called a "careful statement" that said that Morse had done nothing legally wrong but since HA had suffered financial hardship he should "act accordingly." He did not and spent years trying to repair his reputation, an action HA ignored.       HA's admirers then set up an annuity which allowed her to continue her work in relative security as her eyes began to fail. She had no formal schooling as was the custom for women in those times. She published under the ambiguously sexed pseudonym H. A. Adams. She is thought to be the first American woman to actually support herself by writing. B. 10-02-1798, Mother Theodore Guerin - French nun. TG co-founded what became the first women's school in Indiana. TG with five other nuns had established a convent near Terre Haute that in 1841 opened a girls' academy that later evolved into the Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. It was the first girl's school in Indiana. B. 10-02-1846, Dr. Eliza Maria Mosher - U.S. physician and educator. EMM established medical facilities - and was often the only physician responsible for the health and dental care of the inmates - at the newly formed Massachusetts Reformatory Prison for Women. She taught at several New York medical schools while continuing a private practice in partnership with Dr. Lucy M. Hall, and with Dr. Hall alternated years of teaching at Vassar College.       EMM was named the first woman on the University of Michigan's faculty acting as dean of women and professor of hygiene.       One of her most lasting innovations was the design of school desks and chairs for children that maintained their posture in an orthopedically sound manner. This design led to other considerations for the physical structure of children's furniture rather than requiring the small bodies to contort themselves in adult-size chairs, etc. B. 10-02-1869, Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi - Indian politician who popularized nonviolence passive resistance against oppression - a system that had been used by women since time immemorial. And as with women and passive resistance, Gandhi's success in founding an independent India only came when it was financially advantageous to the oppressor. B. 10-02-1885, Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde - U.S. statesperson. RBOR was a former United States Ambassador to Denmark; member of the House of Representatives from 1929-1933, and first woman elected from the deep South (Florida).       This remarkable woman keeps getting lost in history books because of her several married names - another victim of the social pressures that more or less force women to adopt their husband's names in the U.S. - something that is NOT done in many other nations.       Overlooked along with her name are her remarkable accomplishments in just four years in the U.S. House of Representatives - and the battle she waged to regain her U.S. citizenship and a natural-born citizen's right to the seat in the U.S. House she was elected to.       Her accomplishments as U.S. Representative include the farsighted proposals to designate the Florida Everglades as a national park and to establish a cabinet-level department to oversee the health and welfare of families and children.       She lost her reelection in 1932 because she favored prohibition - although later she voted FOR its repeal because that was what her constituents wanted.       RBOR was appointed U.S. Minister to Denmark in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She resigned from the foreign service (1936) to marry a second time, a Danish citizen. Her marriage to a Dane gave her duel citizenship according to Danish law and an impossible conflict as a U.S. ambassador.       President Harry Truman appointed her alternate U.S. delegate (1949) to the U.N. General Assembly where she chaired the executive committee of the UN Speakers Research Committee. RBOR received the Distinguished Service Medal from King Frederik of Denmark (1954). RBOR authored six books.       Politically, she is best known, however for the grueling 10,000 mile campaign up and down the coast of Florida in her winning campaign for the Fourth District Congressional seat in 1928.       After she won election, her opponents challenged her by claiming that she had forfeited her American citizenship under a law passed in 1907 when she married a British subject, Reginald Owen in 1910. The 1922 Cable Act, one of a series to right the wrongs of the 1907 law, enabled her to be renaturalized, but her opponents claimed it did not meet the seven year PRIOR citizenship requirement for a congressional representative. The 1907 law stripped a native-born U.S. woman of her citizenship if she married a citizen of another nation. No such outrageous actions were taken against men who married foreign women - in fact, their marriage conferred U.S. citizenship on their wives!       The House ethics committee allowed her to be seated after an emotional appeal and a LOGICAL one. She was, after all, BORN an American. Her case focused national attention on the grossly unfair laws affecting women. The law had been changed but even such people as heiress Barbara Hutton and renowned news correspondent Dorothy Thompson had lost their citizenship because of the appalling law and were unable to regain it because there was no retroactive elimination.       RBOR was the eldest daughter of William Jennings Bryan, noted U.S. political figure and a candidate for the presidency. A daughter but not his clone. While serving as U.S. Representative, she astonished pundits by voting FOR tariffs on imports, a policy her father had vehemently opposed. B. 10-02-1895, Col. Ruth Cheney Streeter - U.S. military commanding officer. RCS was named director of U.S. Marine Corps Women's Reserve when it was established 02-13- 1943 and reached a complement of 1,000 officers and 18,000 enlisted during WWII. Although she had no previous military experience, her tenure was highly complimented. RCS got her pilot's license at 45 and qualified for her commercial pilot's license at 47. B. 10-02-1929, Tanaqueil Le Clercq - Parisian-born U.S. ballerina. TC was ranked as a principal dancer and was a particularly favorite dancer of George Balanchine to whom she was married 1952-1969. Her career was abruptly ended when she contracted polio in 1956. She became a teacher at the renowned Harlem Dance Theatre. B. 10-02-1948, Donna Karan - U.S. fashion designer. DK is the designer responsible for the Murphy Brown look - the mix and match wear in soft fabrics in muted colors that allowed an active woman to move comfortably and stay neat all day. She had two terms as chief designer for the Anne Klein line before breaking off to form her own line. Her first stock offering topped $160 million. B. 10-02-1949, Annie Leibovitz - U.S. photographer. AL made her greatest early impact as chief photographer of Rolling Stone, 1973-83. She was winner of the advertising Clio award 1988. Her photographs are often the ones historians use to illustrate the 60s and 70s culture. Like so many of the "hippy" generation, she graduated to "yuppy" and is now one of the leading photographers of such publications as Vanity Fair.       She continues to publish highly successful photographic-art books. DIED 10-02-1967, Albertina Rasch - Austrian-born American dancer, choreographer and teacher. AR provided many of the dance groups and choruses for Broadway and films of the 1920s and 30s. Instead of being simply precision dancers, the Rasch groups' choreography and performances were closely tied to the drama as well as providing some individual routines. She often incorporated classical ballet into her troups' routines. She was trained in classical ballet in the Vienna Opera ballet school.) | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR SHAKESPEARE:       "Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air / Hang fated o'er men's faults light on thy daughters!"             -- Shakespeare RUKEYSER, MURIEL:       "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?       "The world would split open."             -- Muriel Rukeyser in the poem Kathe Kollwitz. STONE, MERLIN:       "Discussing the position of women in ancient Egypt, theologian and archaeologist Roland de Vaux wrote in 1965 that 'In Egypt the wife was often the head of the family, with all the rights such a position entailed.' Obedience was urged upon husbands in the maxims of Ptah-Hotep. Marriage contracts of all periods attest the extremely independent social and economic position of women.       "According to E. Meyer, who is quoted in the Vaertings' study, 'Among the Egyptians the women were remarkably free ... as late as the fourth century BC there existed side by side with patriarchal marriage, a form of marriage in which the wife chose the husband and could divorce him up payment of compensation.'       "Love poems, discovered in Egyptian tombs, strongly hint that is was the Egyptian women who did the courting, oft times wooing the male by plying him with intoxicants to weaken his protestations. Robert Briffault wrote of an Egyptian woman clerk who later became a governor and eventually the commander-in-chief of an army."             -- Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman. New York: Harvest Harcout Brace Jovanovich. 1976. SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT: How to Help Women Candidates and Pro-Women Candidates Get Elected | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |