11-07-94 Women of Achievement and Herstory B. 11-07-1847, Lotta Crabtree, taught by the legendary Lola Montez, she was the rage of the English and American stage leaving a fortune of $4 million. B. 11-07-1867, Marie Sklodowska Curie, Polish-French physicist whose work with radium and other materials made her the first person to win the Nobel prize twice. The mother of two children, including a daughter Irene who also won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1935), Mdm. Curie was the first female lecturer and professor at Sorbonne. She had degress in mathematics and physics. Pierre Curie, Marie's husband who shared the first of the two Nobel prizes won by Marie (1903 for Physics) was offered France's Legion of Honor, its highest honor for winning the Nobel. But he refused it because it was not awarded jointly with his wife who was instrumental in the discovery of radium. Pierre died in 1905. Marie won her second Nobel in 1911 for Chemistry. During World War I in France, with the assistance of her daughter Irene, Marie Curie rushed to perfect the new medical diagnostic tool "X radiography." She learned to drive a car, acquainted herself with auto mechanics, and drove to battlefields to personally install mobile X-ray equipment that served as many as one million soldiers. In 1921, Marie Curie was given a gram of radium valued at $250,000 by American women. Curie was too poor to buy it herself even after winning TWO Nobel Prizes. B. 11-07-1878, Lise Meitner, Austrian physicist, during her research in Germany and Austria with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman strange results with uranium led to the discovery of uranium fission in 1938. She then proved mathematically that atoms could be split - one of the great scientific discoveries of the century- while she was fleeing Nazi Germany and to settle in Sweden where she continued her research. Her detailing of the theory of splitting the uranium atom led to the A-bomb and is the basis of atomic energy. Meitner is gradually being recognized as the true parent of the atomic age. She was the first woman to receive the Ernrico Fermi Award (1966). Oddly enough she worked for the Nobel Institute in Sweden in her later years and never received full credit for her outstanding work. B. 11-07-1893, Margaret Kernochan Leech, author and historian, Pulitzer prize winner for _Reveille in Washington, 1860-1865_(1941) and _In the Days of McKinley_ (1959). B. 11-07-1917, Helen Gavronsky Suzman, spoke out against arpartheid when elected to the South African parliament in 1953. B. 11-07-1926, Dame Joan Sutherland, Australian opera singer considered to have one of the greatest bell canto voices in herstory. Her Lucia in person was just as powerful as her recordings (trust me!) B. 11-07-1936, Audrey McLaughlin, named leader of Canada's New Democratic party in 1989, Yukon representative to Canada's parliament. B. 11-07-1937, Mary Travers, author, composer, singer, of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame. Event 11-07-1942, Dorothy Edith Lorne Tuttle, enlisted as the first member of the Coast Guard Women's Reserve (SPARS). B. 11-07-1943, Joni Mitchell, singer, composer. _Day After Day_. Grammy award winner as best folk performer of 1970. (C) 1994 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR 71902, irenestuber@delphi.com. Distribute verbatim copies freely with copyright notice for non-profit use. Don't let anyone tell you there weren't notable and effective women throughout history. They were always there, but historians failed to note them in our histories so that each generation of women has had to reinvent themselves.