"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" November 27/28, 1995 - Episodes 486-7 - Women of Achievement and Herstory compiled by Irene Stuber """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" OUR weekend double edition - we post two days in advance. 11-27 Anniversaries ........................................... B. Nov. 27, 1809, Fanny Kemble, British actor and author whose writings give historians insight into stage and social conditions of the 19th century. Born into an acting family, she was an acclaimed star in both England and the United States. She had disdained acting but was forced into it to save her family from financial ruin. For a time she retired from the stage, marrying a Philadelphia man, who was also a Georgia plantation owner. Her shock at the plantation's conditions and later her husband's socially accepted adulteries led to divorce. Although she wrote several books, her _Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation_ (1863) is her most telling work. She was an early suffragist. B. Nov. 27, 1867, Margaret Ruthven Lang, composer. Her most noted works: "Witichis" and "Sappho's Prayer to Aphrodite." B. Nov. 27, 1875, Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons, holder of a Ph.D., who had to publish under the pseudonym _John Main_ so as not to embarrass her husband with her feminist views. After divorce she became a noted anthropologist and expert of the Pueblo Indians. Foremost of her many books and articles is the two-volume _Pueblo Indian Religion_ (1939). B. Nov. 27, 1909, Kunying Pierra Vejjabul, brave Thai physician who campaigned against prostitution and polygamy. Worked for the Thai public health department and established Pierra Maternity and Child Welfare Foundation. B. Nov. 27, 1995, Mabel Wheeler Daniels, American composer, specialized in choral music, the only American composer played at the Carnegie Hall Festival in 1939, the only woman to have three works played by the Boston Symphony 1929, 1934, and 1954, but was never able to earn a living with her music. "What difference whether (music is) written by a man or a woman or a Hottentot or a Unitarian," she asked. 11-28 Anniversaries ........................................... B. Nov. 28, 1853, Helen Magill White, raised a Quaker, thinking she was as deserving of the same education as men, organized Howard College in Massachusetts. B. Nov. 28, 1904, Nancy Mitford, English-born American writer, the eldest of six sisters. Wrote a number of light-hearted novels. She worked in France at refugee camps for those escaping the Spanish Civil War and then later worked with the Free French in World War II. Settling in France after WWII, she wrote several acclaimed biographies including _Voltaire in Love_ (1957) and _Madame du Pompadour_ (1954). Her sister Jessica Mitford (B.1917) also was an acclaimed writer. B. Nov. 28, 1904, Helen Jepson, American soprano and vocal teacher. B. Nov. 28, 1909, Rose Bampton, debuted at the Metropolitan Opera on her 23rd birthday as a contralto because her doctor had diagnosed a voice problem as a contralto trying to sing soprano. She quickly tired of being a villain and took extensive voice exercise lessons and finally debuted with a 2.5 octave range as Leonora in _Il Trovatore_ in 1937. B. Nov. 28, 1923, Helen Delich Bentley, U.S. Representative (R. 2nd Dist. Maryland). B. Nov. 28, 1932, Margaret Costanza, special assistant to President Jimmy Carter. B. Nov. 28, 1944, Rita Mae Brown*, novelist and poet. Gained fame with her rollicking _Rubyfruit Jungle_ about growing up a lesbian in South Florida when she became friends with actor Alexis Smith. Later she had an affair with tennis player Martina Navritalova and wrote a controversial "revenge" book about women's tennis. She has since been quoted as saying, "Next time anybody calls me a lesbian writer, I'm going to knock their teeth in. I'm a writer, I'm a woman, and I'm from the South, and I'm alive, and that is that." Quotes du jour ................................................ "You want the kind of girl / who gives up her career / to help you succeed in yours / and who gives up her whole being / to make you a superman./ -- / "Well honey / I'm proud to say that / I'm NOT that kind of girl" - Susan Polis Schutz ....................... * ........................ 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 have 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 istuber@cswnet.com or 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 costs of posting WOA.<<