""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" November 15, 1995 - Episode 474 - Women of Achievement and Herstory compiled by Irene Stuber """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" B. Nov. 15, 1873, Sara Josephine "Jo" Baker*, doctor and public-health worker. Founded Bureau of Child Hygiene and her revolutionary methods of teaching hygiene, providing nutrition, and prenatal care reduced infant mortality by 1200 a year, making New York City's infant mortality rate the lowest in the US; dropping infant deaths from 144/1000 live births in 1908 to 66/1000 in 1923. Designed baby clothes with front openings that eliminated suffocation. First woman to serve the League of Nations in an official capacity. Suffrager. Was a member of the influential Heterodoxy that networked women during the early part of the 20th century in the U.S. SJB's companions included Florence Laighton and Ida A. R. Wylie. She was one of the women chosen to lobby Congressmen and Senators in their Capitol offices for women's suffrage because of her great reputation. "The way to keep people from dying from disease, it struck me suddenly, was to keep them from falling ill. Healthy people don't die. It sounds like a completely witless remark, but at that time it was a startling idea. Preventative medicine had hardly been born yet and had no promotion in public health work," said Dr. Baker. SJB was born into a privileged family. After her father died when she was 16, Sara Josephine Baker had to find a profession to earn a living. -->> Continued tomorrow ... 11-15 Anniversaries ........................................... B. Nov. 15, 1861, Margaret Angela Haley, union activist, worked on behalf of school teachers, revamping their unions into true representatives of the teachers, not the school boards. When Chicago teachers were refused raises because of alleged poverty of the system, she and a friend investigated tax assessments and forced reassessments of utilities. She got raises for the teachers after two appeals to the Supreme Court. MAH is responsible for pioneering pension plans for teachers and teacher tenure laws in Illinois. B. Nov. 15, 1871, Bertha Muzzy Bower, who signed her 57 published westerns B.M. Bower to get them published. B. Nov. 15, 1887, Georgia O'Keeffe, artist noted for semi-abstract paintings of natural forms. B. Nov. 15, 1887, Marianne Craig Moore*, American poet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1951, National Book Award 1952, National Institute of Arts and Letters gold medal 1953. Her first book of poetry edited by HD* (Hilda Doolittle) and Winifred Ellerman had been published in England without her permission to force her to publish her work. Edited _The Dial_, noted literary magazine of the time. She was usually photographed wearing a tricorn hat. Her mother was an English teacher. Event Nov. 15, 1983, the US House of Representatives votes NOT to reintroduce the Equal Rights Amendment, which had failed ratification by the margin of three states on June 30, 1982. Event Nov. 15, 1991, after citing the question of censorship, Penn State officials removed the nude painting of the lover of Francisco de Goya from a classroom. A woman professor had complained that the painting on the wall behind her prevented her from appearing professional. When school officials finally agreed to remove the nude, a male art professor pulled down several other paintings saying, "I did not want to get in a whole debate over what should be up and what shouldn't, so we took them all down." He forgot to mention that NO FRONTAL NUDES OF MEN have EVER appeared as art on the walls of the college. Quotes du jour ................................................ "Indeed, I condemned myself when I slandered all womankind." -- Marie de France (1160-1215?), from the poem, _Le Fresne_,The Ash Tree. ....................... * ........................ The URLs to the most current weeks' worth of WOA set up on the Web by Laurie D. T. Mann, the Feminist Webitor, are: http://worcester.lm.com/women/is/achievement.html The FTPs for Women of Achievement and Herstory being archived by William Affleck-Asch, are: ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/f/feminist/ (or NCFTP open ftp.eskimo.com cd /u/f/feminist/) Or, on Netscape, simply query "Irene Stuber" ....................... * ........................ 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 the women of each generation has had to reinvent themselves. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>(C) 1995, All Rights Reserved, Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR 71902, voice mail or fax, 501-624-5262 ID #300, or email irenestuber@delphi.com with comments and suggestions. Distribute verbatim copies freely with copyright notice for non-profit use. We are accepting *limited* donations (only what can be spared) to help offset the online costs of posting WOA.<<