05-18 TABLE of CONTENTS: The art of Gertrude Stanton Kasebier DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTE by Elizabeth Janeway. {{Image}} This soft-focus photograph hangs in a prestigious museum. Created around 1899 by Getrude Kasebier. It is entitled The Manger. The art of Gertrude Stanton Kasebier Gertrude Stanton Kasebier (b.05-18-1853) turmed from painting to photography in 1887 to become the first woman to be recognized and honored in the fledgling profession.       She held a number of exhibitions and her works appeared in the most influential publications of the day.       She remained with the aesthetics school of photography, using soft focus platinum plates that surpassed anything of her day.       She was too successful, however, and her artistry slipped as she became too busy (no wife or mistress to take care of her). She was married and had to set aside her ambitions for years before going to France to study painting.[Ed. note: her work is GORGEOUS! It isn't not just snapshots with a touch of artsy, it's impressionistic art!] | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 05-18 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS Event 05-18-1836: Cynthia Ann Parker, a blue-eyed blonde Causcasian woman, was captured by the Comanche at age nine. When U.S. soldiers found her four years later in a Comanche camp where she was living under the name "Prelock," she refused to return. She said she was happy living as a Comanche. ///In 1860 she and her infant daughter were captured in a U.S. army raid and was forcibly detained. She was sent to Parker's father.       The infant died soon after capture and Prelock died in 1864, according to legend, by starving herself to death longing to go back to the Comanche way of life. ///Her eldest son Quanah became chief of the Kwahadi tribe which held out against the white man. Some called him the most ferocious Indian who ever lived.       In 1875 he suddenly brought his people in and settled near the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma and saw to it that Comanche children went to school and were educated. B. 05-18-1855, Abby Leach who in 1879 was one of the first women to be enrolled in the Harvard annex, the precursor of Radcliffe College.       AL became head of the Greek Department and an awesome presence during Vassar's formative years. B. 05-18-1867, Elisabeth Luther Cary, U.S. author and editor, the first American art critic. ELC worked for the New York Times for 28 years and set impartial and meticulous standards for the field. B. 05-18-1907, Irene Hunt, U.S. author, winner of Newbery Medal for Up A Road Slowly (1967). B. 05-18-1910, Pauline Viardot-Garc¡a, noted French mezzo-soprano whose sister was renowned contralto Maria Malibran. In addition to her many operatic roles, she composed operas and other instrumental and vocal music. B. 05-18-1914, Catherine (Dean) May, U.S. Congressional Representative, the first from the State of Washington who was also a woman. She served three terms in the Washington state legislature. CM had taught school, was a women's editor, and news broadcaster on local radio. Her mother co-operated a real estate office with her husband and operated it on alone after his death. B. 05-18-1919, Dame Margot Fonteyn, legendary prima ballerina of Britain's Royal Ballet. In 1979, on her 60th birthday, she was named prima ballerina assolutta, a title officially given only three times in the history of the Imperial Russian Ballet.       She was technically perfect, her moves were precise, and her ability to project character unsurpassed. Her dancing partnership with Nureyev brought out the best in both of them. B. 05-18-1926, Jane C. Goodale, photographer, carver, and anthropologist who was part of a five person National Geographic Expedition to Melville Island (northern Australia) which landed April 16, 1954 and stayed for six months to make an ethnographic study of the Tiwi people.       She had been given a two-day crash course in photography prior to embarking and yet her photographs became world famous. B. 05-18-1948, Sarah Jewler, U.S. editor who was managing editor, Manhattan Inc., NYC 1984-89,The Village Voice, NYC 1989-94, and The New York Magazine, NYC 1994-. Event 05-18-1956, Maud Keister Jensen, becomes the first Methodist Episcopal woman to receive full clergy rights (1956, Central Pennsylvania conference). | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR JANEWAY, ELIZABETH:       "We older women who know we aren't heroines can offer our younger sisters, at the very least, an honest report of what we have learned and how we have grown."             -- Elizabeth Janeway, Ms. Magazine, 1973. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |